Re: [gentoo-user] Can't hear anything. :-(

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 6:54 AM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@×××.de> wrote:
> Hi, gentoo,
>
> I'm trying to get sound to sound on my new Gentoo box, following the
> "Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide".  Everything seems to be working fine, except
> no sound is coming out of my loudspeakers.
>
> I've checked the obvious things: the speakers are plugged in, switched
> on and connected to the appropriate socket on my motherboard (the light
> green one).
>
> I have drivers for my motherboard's sound chips compiled into my kernel,
> and they are correctly identified by alsamixer.  With alsamixer I've
> unmuted various things and turned up the volume.
>
> madplay appears to play an mp3 file I have.  Just that no actual sound
> comes out.
>
> One other strange thing: the titles under the "volume bars" in alsamixer
> are very different from the ones in the document: Instead of "Master /
> Headphone / Tone / Bass / Treble / 3D Contr / PCM", I've got " Master /
> Headphon / Front / Front Mi / Surround / Center / LFE / Side / Line /
> Mic / Mic Boos / S/PDIF / S/PDIF D / Beep".  Why is this?  In
> particular, I'm missing the "PCM" volume bar which the documentation
> says is so important to unmute.
>
> What am I missing here?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
>

Did you get this worked out yet? VERY strange that you don't see pcm
as a mixer control...

It's a bit hard to say much with so little info but I'll offer a
couple of things:

1) IMO Alsa has never run so well when drivers are compiled into the
kernel. I do a lot of audio in Linux and have always had the best
results using modules. I would strongly suggest you give it a try...

2) Under /proc/asound/card0 (or whatever card you are using if you
have more than 1) do you see any pcm directories?

3) Post back a little more info?

cat /proc/asound/cards
aplay -l
aplay -L
lsmod

Good luck,
Mark