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. Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/ http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/oar http://www.wayward4now.net <---down4now too ================================================
