My two cents on the FC2 sound problems

[Jim Daleo]

I would like to comment on the “problems” getting sound to work on FC2.

I was one of the many people that had difficulty. First of all when I 
run system-config-soundcard and play the test sound I get a message 
stating:

“The snd-intel8x0 driver could not be loaded”

This message is misleading. It leads you to believe that there is a 
problem with the module. The module is, in fact, already installed.

After I respond to the next message box indicating that I did not here 
the test sound I see an error message:

“Automatic detection of the sound card did not work. Audio will not be 
available on the system. Please click OK to continue.”

This is just plain wrong. The automatic detection did work.

Combing through the mailing list archives you find references to the 
volume defaulting to zero. Raising the volume control on the panel, 
however, does not help. The “Volume Control” selection on the menu gives 
an error:

Cannot launch entry

Details: Failed to execute child process "gst-mixer" (No such file or 
directory)

Even after the clues from the mailing list it is not obvious what to do. 
You must right clic on the panel applet and select “Open Volume Control” 
from the context menu. It is then that you see that even with the 
overall volume up all the individual volumes are all the way down.

I still do not know how to save the settings from session to session.

I have read the argument that starting with all the volumes at zero is 
not a bug but was a conscience decision. While this may be true there 
is, still, clearly a problem here. Just look at the list and see how 
many people struggled with this.

I have read that you can write a script to set the volumes and even some 
arguments as to where the script should be placed.

It is unacceptable to expect the average end user to have comb through 
mailing lists for clues and then write a script to get the sound working 
on their computer. This has to work “out of the box”.

Jim