still no sound

[jerry]

With Beta 1, it was discoverd my sound card wasn't included in the code. Here's a few diagnostics with beta 2:
vendor = 'Creative Technology LTD.'
device = 'Soundblaster Live! 5.1 (emu10k1x)'
class = multimedia
subclass = audio
none2@pci0:2:2:1: class=0x098000 card=0x10031102 chip=0x70041102 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
vendor = 'Creative Technology LTD.'
device = 'Game port for SB Live! Series'
class = input device
fxp0@pci0:2:8:0: class=0x020000 card=0x01551028 chip=0x10508086 rev=0x02 hdr=0x00

Then a bunch of these, repeatedly:
ALSA lib conf.c:4154:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:4154:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:4154:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib conf.c:4633:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2211:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:1433:(_snd_pcm_hw_open) Invalid value for card
ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'

Aside from no sound, the burn went well. Download took about 20 minutes. My printer is working when I identify an HP but different model. My model isn't listed.

I only had a brief bit of time so I'll be back. Gotta go to work.
Thanks for this awesome piece of wizardry.
regards, jerry

[Kevin McAleavey]

Drat! I was hoping that our driver alone would have done the trick, but the "none2@" entry indicates that the kernel itself still doesn't have the internals to detect it. So now we're stuck halfway with our detecting it but the kernel unable to connect to it. The 8.1 kernel which we had intended to use turned out to have problems, and with the expiry deadline looming, we had to revert to the earlier 8.0stable kernel since we didn't want to use the problematic new kernel until BSD can fix those problems.

Sorry to say, we know what the problem is and BSD has addressed it, but it's going to have to wait for one more build before we can include the 8.1 kernel in KNOS. Timing didn't work out as we had expected as their release was delayed. My apologies for that.

[Kevin McAleavey]

And back again ... just got an answer from the BSD folks and sorry to say, it's not a happy one. The BSD folks inform me that for this specific sound card, Dell has never released any technical information nor does the card have the capability to permit attaching outside of their proprietary driver which they will not make available.

Quoting from Wikipedia ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_Live!#Sound_Blaster_Live.21_Dell_OEM )

---

<B>Sound Blaster Live! Dell OEM</B>

This card, marketed as a Sound Blaster Live!, did not have the full capabilities of the retail versions of Live! It used a different audio chip, not EMU10K1 but EMU10K1X, that is noticeably smaller with fewer pins. The chip does not accelerate DirectSound in hardware, nor EAX. The sale of this board by Dell created some controversy because it was not obviously marketed as an inferior or cheaper product. The card can be identified by its part number (SB0200/0203).

---

I'm sorry to say that the only solution is another sound card here.

[jerry]

Shucks, well, perhaps I could turn off the card and turn on the mobo's onboard audio.

I just got a new laptop so I'll likely give the 64 bit KNOS a spin. The laptop has more RAM too (4 vs. 1 gig) so things will move quicker.

Thanks for all the research for my oldie but goodie dell Kevin

regards, jerry

[Kevin McAleavey]

Aug 13, 2010 22:31:09 GMT -5 jerry said:

Shucks, well, perhaps I could turn off the card and turn on the mobo's onboard audio.

I just got a new laptop so I'll likely give the 64 bit KNOS a spin. The laptop has more RAM too (4 vs. 1 gig) so things will move quicker.

Thanks for all the research for my oldie but goodie dell Kevin

regards, jerry

Thanks for your patience here ... despite the unhappy outcome, we still want to find a solution to this. Only problem is there isn't one in the hopper as yet. One of the good things about KNOS going forward is that all of our work is under the BSD license rather than the Linux GPL silliness. This means that we can actually sign a non-disclosure with vendors and agree to never release any of their private information in exchange for being able to support things that will never be released for Linux or other OS' which don't respect the intellectual property of the owners of that stuff. So it's not a case here of "never say never" but unfortunately by Creative and Dell's choice, it's more of "not right now."