Fedora Rant #3 - why are the sound controls so weird?

[Timothy Murphy]

Matthew Saltzman wrote:

>>>> System Settings=>Soundcard Detection
>>>> strikes me as completely useless.
>>>> What exactly is the point of it?
>>>> Has anyone ever found it of any use?
>>>
>>> Why, yes.  I find that it detects and configures my sound cards (SB
>>> Live! and Intel 82801) flawlessly and plays a test sound in the left,
>>> right, and
>>> both channels.  That means it got the right hardware and inserted the
>>> right driver module with the right parameters.
>>
>> In what way does it "configure" your card?
> 
> It adds appropriate entries in /etc/mpdprobe.conf so that the appropriate
> modules are loaded at boot with the appropriate options.  In the case of
> my Intel card:
> 
>    alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
>    options snd-card-0 index=0
>    options snd-intel8x0 index=0
>    remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ;
>    }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0

OK, I didn't realise it ever did this.

It doesn't seem to do this in my case -
I just ran System Settings=>Soundcard Detection,
heard the sound and replied "Yes" when asked.
but it didn't appear to add (or subtract) anything to /etc/modprobe.conf .

>> As far as I can see, it simply tells you what card it sees,
>> and asks you if it is working.
>> If it is, it tells you it is working.
>> If it is not, it tells you it is not working.

I guess my main gripe here -
and this is only a very small part of my moan about sound configuration -
is that if sound does not work it should at least suggest
something one might do, or somewhere one might get help.
 
> And if it is working, it will continue to work across boots.  (At least in
> my case.  If it doesn't in your case, see bugzilla.redhat.com.)

In my case, the problem is that sound works spasmodically -
it is working now, but probably won't be in an hour's time.
I've seen a number of postings about "timeouts" with this chip -
Yamaha YMF-754 -
and my guess is that this is the problem in my case,
though the general experience seems to be
that the chip works if the mains supply is on,
but not if running on battery,
and that is not the situation in my case -
there is no correlation between sound working
and running on mains or battery.

I actually have a second identical laptop,
which as far as I know has identical settings,
on which sound always works,
though with a whistle unless turned down very low.

However, when I wrote my rant,
I wasn't really looking for advice about my problem -
though I am always happy to receive advice -
I was complaining about the difficulty I encountered
in understanding the various sound configuration tools.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland