[olug] Debian Sound Problem

[Daniel Linder]

On Thu, August 30, 2007 08:17, Russell Monaghan wrote:
>   Ok. ARTS isn't running, and I'm using GNOME. The dd command doesn't
> work if GDM is running. I switched to the console and checked alsamixer,
> and it showed my sound card and nothing was muted. And it was
> controlling the master. So then I tried the dd command, and still
> nothing. Then I shutdown GDM, like Shawn suggested, and, magically, if I
> dd again I get the static. But if I then run alsaplayer to play an mp3
> file, it gives me a *mad_open() failed *error. But now I know that once
> GNOME starts up, the /dev/dsp device becomes unavailable. Something
> starts up and blocks the sound device.

Is your user id part of the "audio" group?  "grep audio /etc/group" and
check for your user name listed after the last set of colons.  (But if you
"sudo -i" and try to play the mp3, does that work?)

Also, in a previous post I thought you said you were running KDE.  Was I
mistaken?  (Really shouldn't matter if the hardware works - only matters
if we're trying to debug the Gnome or KDE sound server...)

You could also try to run "strace alsaplayer anysong.mp3" and see if you
can see the call to the "mad_open" and why it's failing -- a long shot and
only helpfull if you can wade through the output.

Dan

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