Sound issue with KDEand Gcompris/Childsplay

Ric Moore wayward4now at gmail.com
Thu Dec 20 05:18:16 UTC 2007


On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 11:33 +1100, Simon Slater wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 10:34 +1100, Simon Slater wrote:
> > 	G'day all,
> > 		Earlier this year I set up an old PII400 for the kids to do school
> > work and (of course) games. It is running FC6 and KDE 3.5.5-0.2.fc6.
> > When originally setting up the box I had trouble getting the sound
> > working, but the kids didn't really mind so I left it, thinking it was
> > the sound card at fault.
> > 	A couple of weeks ago some notification sounds were heard.  Last night
> > one daughter got sound on both Gcompris and Childsplay.  I did nothing
> > and she has no idea what she did to get it going. But the sound on these
> > games is only working on her login only, no one else's.
> > 
> > 	This morning I still get the same KDE error from the control centre
> > Test Sound which I got at the start of the year, saying:
> > 
> > Error while initializing the sound driver.  device: default cannot be
> > opened for playback (Device or resource busy) The sound server, will
> > continue using the null output device.
> > 
> > 	 If all is being sent to /dev/null why do I have sound?  KDE control
> > centre says Alsa is being used but rpm -q alsa says it is not installed.
> > Control centre settings are the same for all users.
> > 
> > 	Now the other kids have heard sound on the bigger sister's login, they
> > want Gcompris and Childsplay to have sound for them too.  I guess I need
> > to fix it now, but where do I start?
> > 
> > Thanks
> > Simon Slater
> > and kids
> > 
> 	Well now it gets more confusing.  The sound on the 1 user login, where
> sound on these 2 programmes worked, stopped.  After a reboot, I logged
> in and soung worked in both Gcompris and Childsplay, but only if one is
> running at a time.  Starting Gcompris first then simultaneously running
> Childsplay, the first had sound not the latter, which also locked on
> quitting.
> 
> 	So the sound is working, but I still don't know how!

I have you tried dinking with the mixer settings?? Is this a sound card
or an on-the-motherboard chipset? Some older sound cards needed to use
an IRQ like 9. Turning off devices like a network card, that may be
hogging the IRQ might work. Those older PII's were plug-in-play, right?
There's an RPM for them, but I forget the name. I've been in your shoes
with older machines. It can be fun ferreting out the causes. But I found
it usually to be an IRQ issue. Using the bios setting to Plug And Play
Aware works at times, too. If I can recall more, I'll be sure to get
back to you. Trouble shooting with a shotgun, Ric
  
-- 
================================================
My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
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