Mandrake 10 and Sb Audigy LS

Anchises

I'm a total newcomer to linux and I've decided to jump in at the deep end....
I've set up an old PC (MSI 6163pro _ Pentium3 speed 700Mhz, 128Ram...WOW ! This PC has been thrown together with garage junk.

I've installed, Mandrake ver 10.0 , works fine but would not recognise my sound card.... a Creative Sb Audigy LS
(ah I 've jusr remembered that I have only 3 CDs and on install it asked for a 4th....Hmmm...)

However, I'm now surfing the net , via my network - no problem....and everything seems to work EXCEPT sound card..

After much research and headscratching ..........

I've been trying to install ALSA soundcard drivers with the help of ;

http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/doc-php/template.php?company=Creative+Labs&card=Sound+Blaster+LS.&chip=SB0310

%2C+P17&module=ca0106

And

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Alsa-sound-4.html#ss4.1

I downloaded Driver, Utils and Libs - ver 1.0.14 (rc3 for driver and lib) (rc2 in the case of utils)

extracted all to /usr/src/alsa - it created separate folders for all three.

In terminal did .... (more or less - so many varaints..)

cd ..alsa-driver-1.0.......
./configure ---with-cards=ca0106

\\ had to fiddle with configure to get it to find Version.h (--with-kernel=...) \\


make
make install \\install fails with too few parameters??
cd ../alsa-lib-1.0.....
./configure \\had to fiddle with configure to get it to find Version.h (--with-kernel=...)
make
make install \\install fails with too few parameters??
cd ../alsa-utils-1.0.....
./configure \\had to fiddle with configure to get it to find Version.h (--with-kernel=...)
make
make install \\install fails with too few parameters??
./snddevices

modprobe snd-card=ca0106 \\FATAL ERROR - Module snd-card=ca0106 not found

sndconfig fails with ;
A PCI card was foundin your system. The details are ;
Model : Unknown vendor|unknown device 1102:0007

AAArgh !!:mad:

Is there any assistance you can give ??
This is an experiment .... I must get a better PC for it , and use a later version of Linux....but as a learning experience - it's Ok.

I really want to get to grips with GNU SoftwareDefinedRadio code and it only comes in Linux....

thanks
A.

mathias

Stupid question but just in case ....

Is there a sound card integrated into motherboard , if so , disable it ,

Youve probably done this already , but just putting it out there because this threw me while installing linux , it was detecting onboard sound first and trying to install my creative drivers for that when I forced it.

Creative cards are well supported in Linux and its rare its not detected on install , except of course , in the above case !!

Anchises

Hi Mathias,

There is no sound card on board...
The Sb Audigy LS is a PCI card.

When Mandrake 10 was distributed ...SB Audigy may not have existed ??

I could go back to the drawing board , format and re-install.....
But in fact I did that twice already...

maybe find an older SB card ?...


A.

Snowbat

Anchises wrote:

When Mandrake 10 was distributed ...SB Audigy may not have existed ??

Mandrake 10.0 was released March 4, 2004.
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/6380/index.html

The first ALSA patch for Audigy LS support appeared May 27, 2004 and a driver was included in ALSA 1.0.6 released August 2004.
http://www.mail-archive.com/alsa-devel@lists.sourceforge.net/msg12815.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/alsa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net/msg00018.html

Mandrake changed their name to Mandriva in 2005. You are four versions behind the current Mandriva 2007 release and you're missing out on a lot of application developments and hardware support that's been added. I suggest you install a recent version

Anchises

Thanks for that.
I know I'm way behind ... I'm working on it...

My main PC is a win XP and it demands my time and resources.

A.

Anchises

Snowbat,

Sorry - reading my first response again - it seems less than appreciative of your response.

Those references you gave are very informative.

I'm looking at upgradimg my existing PC possibly converting to Linux but must also keep an XP PC active......
long decision making process ......

I got the Mandriva DVD today with Linux Format mag. looks impressive...

Thanks again

A.

Anchises

Hi,

I'm typing this now using Mandriva One Metisse......firefox.
Booted straight up from DVD - no problems ....

Of course I recently invested in an SB X-Fi ExtremeMusic sound card with I/O ports - a super dooper card .......... Damn ! no Linux Drivers yet available......

So changing to Linux is still a little bumpy for me.


A.

Snowbat

If you can spare a few gigs of hard drive space, you can install Mandriva alongside XP in a dual-boot configuration. The Mandriva installer can shrink an existing NTFS partition for you - just make sure to defrag the NTFS partition in XP first (and a backup is recommended).


Regarding the X-Fi, it seems Creative shipped a sample card to ALSA developers last year but then were less than forthcoming with technical information required to write a driver. I'd guess they had some internal issues with intellectual property, licencing, or trade secrets:
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/index.php?vendor=vendor-Creative_Labs#matrix

Card delivered to developers. Completely new architecture. Creative actively preventing support due to no datasheets being released to ALSA developers. Reverse engineering work not started due to lack of time.

However, Creative plans to release their own proprietary X-Fi Linux driver in Q2, 2007:
http://opensource.creative.com/


If you install Mandriva, make sure to configure your repositories:
http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/
You could do this using the GUI tool but it is simpler and faster to enter the details on that site and copy/paste the commands it returns. FYI, the PLF repository contains packages that cannot be included in the distro due possible legal issues in certain jurisdictions (mp3 encoders, some codecs, DVD decryption, etc.).

For support, the alt.os.linux.mandriva newsgroup is very helpful. If your ISP doesn't provide a Usenet service, you can get it through Google Groups:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.mandriva/topics

Linuxquestions.org has dedicated Mandriva forum too:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/