New PPC G4 Install No Sound

[motsteve]

My Suse 10.3 install on my all Apple, G4, Digital Audio Mac went smoothly except I have no audio. I don't think my video works either, but I've concentrated on the audio for the past few days. Knowing little about getting the audio going I checked the forums/etc and this is what I have so far.

My initial desktop had a normal volume icon, but my tests with the Yast control sound showed no sound when tested. My exploration of the forums said to try to run the Alsaconf script. I did and got no sound still, but now the volume control had a red X through it. I also went to the Yast config tool and tried to configure my sound (my G4 has onboard sound and is termed Powermac Tumbler), but I got an error message using the normal configuration setting which read "The kernel module snd-powermac support could not be loaded... invalid IO or IRQ parameters".

I discovered SDB and the page SDB:Audio Troubleshooting. I executed the two scripts and the results are: Alsa info: 1050185 tsals: au5Pvd4E1 stored on the pastebin.ca server.

My Alsa packages installed are alsa (1.0.14-31.2) alsa-utils (1.0.14-27) and alsa-firmware (1.0.14-24)

No pulse packages installed according to rpm.

I wanted to update the alsa packages, but all the sources cited were for i386, i586, and 64bit Intel.

BTW, my 0.10 gstreamer directory is full of .ko files. I could be missing one, but I wouldn't know how to figure that out.

I'm trying to fix this myself, but I'm over my head here and would appreciate any help I could get. I hope I have enough info above and that I've posted my message in the correct forum.

[motsteve]

Since no one is replying, I'll just add additional info that I've found since posting this in the hopes that someone reading the thread and having my problem will get something out of this.

My kernel has been updated. new = 2.6.22.18-0.2-default

Results of running Yast hardware listing yields this:

14: None 00.0: 0401 Multimedia audio controller
[Created at prom.336]
Unique ID: rdCR.ITz6G5CcwPB
Hardware Class: sound
Model: "Apple Integrated Sound (awacs)"
Vendor: int 0x0401 "Apple"
Device: int 0x0010 "Integrated Sound (awacs)"
Driver Info #0:
Driver Status: snd-powermac is not active
Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe snd-powermac"
Config Status: cfg=yes, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

/proc/asound/oss/sndstat says:

Card config:
PowerMac Tumbler (Dev 14) Sub-frame 0
Audio devices:
0: PowerMac Tumbler
Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG
Midi devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG
Timers:
31: system timer
Mixers:
0: PowerMac Tumbler

If I attempt to configure the sound card that's listed in the Yast config window, Yast quits. If I try to config the awacs file in the config window, Yast tells me to go pound sand. Deleting the other card and trying again gets the same result.

At first boot lsmod does not list snd-powermac module loaded. Doing a modprobe snd-powermac loads module, but still no sound.

SND_POWERMAC needs to be loaded at boot and I'll figure out how to do that, but that still won't solve the audio problem. One step at a time, I guess.

[oldcpu]

I'll take a stab at this .... even though I don't have a Mac.

Can you try work your way through the audio troubleshooting guide. It was clearly not written for a Mac (but was written for a i386, i586, and 64bit Intel architecture) but it still might be helpful (for example the rpm updates don't apply to your Mac).
openSUSE Audio Troubleshooting

In particular please post here the URL(s) that is output by your running the two diagnostic scripts:
Scripts_to_run_to_obtain_detailed_information

And also paste here the output of:
rpm -qa | grep alsa
rpm -qa | grep pulse
rpm -q libasound2
uname -a
cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound

I hope to learn what audio hardware codec your mac has. It might be necessary to do a custom compile of alsa, but no worries, ... we can cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

[motsteve]

Please read my first portion of the thread. All of that info you need is there. I put that in at the first after spending several days reading the SDB troubleshooting page, etc. My second portion was additional information I gained just going from directory to directory looking for anything related to sound.I've also been to the ALSA web site looking for information also. I've done several installations on both PPC and Windows machines and sound is always a pain. I have never had problems with sound either on a Mac or in Windows using their OS's only with Linux have I had problems. I know ALSA is trying hard to make sound universal like printing is with CUPS, but it still needs some tweeking. I'm patient, I'll wait. It will get there eventually.

Please note that my kernel was updated and that part on the ALSA info will be different. Try also 1052518 with the new revision.

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by motsteve

Please read my first portion of the thread. All of that info you need is there.

I actually read your post a few times before I replied. I do not see your hardware audio codec there. Maybe its because I am not familiar with a Mac. .. or maybe its not there.

I asked for the output of "rpm -qa | grep alsa" because I want to see all alsa apps you might have installed, not just the ones you want to tell me about.

I asked for libasound2 because I know of cases where users did not have that installed and it broke their audio. You did not mention that.

I asked for the "uname -a" because in the past, I have been helping users who would change their kernel in the middle of support and not tell me. I want a constant baseline and typing "uname -a" does not hurt.

I asked for the output of "cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound" because I know of at least one case, where I helped a Mac user with their sound, that that file needed a hand edit for mac users.

The diagnostic scripts also provide an assortment of useful mixer information, that might point to a bad mixer setting.

You know, if this help from me is going to work, you will have to trust me and provide information I ask for. If you cant' do that, well no worries, ... maybe someone else will chime in.

Good luck.

[motsteve]

I'm sorry if I wasn't complete in my first portion of the thread. Out of rpm -qa | grep alsa:

alsa-oss-1.0.14-23
alsa-plugins-1.0.14-41
alsa-utils-1.0.14-27
alsa-firmware-1.0.14-24
alsa-1.0.14-31.2

rpm -qa | grep pulse
Nil
My kernel: Linux Tuxland 2.6.22.18-0.2-default #1 2008-06-09 13:53:20 +0200 ppc ppc ppc GNU/Linux

Modprobe
alias snd-card-0 snd-powermac
alias sound-slot-0 snd-powermac

Liba: libasound2-1.0.14-31.2

I tried like crazy to figure out the codec part, but my audio is onboard and is the Powermac Tumbler/Awacs info that I gave earlier. Reading the SDB guide I was still unable to gleem out anything useful (on a codec) because I don't have one of the common sound cards. I'm sorry if I can't be of any help here. I hope the hardware info given by Yast is useful. I kept seeing it, every time I opened up another file or directory in my searching. Please let me know if you need anything else and BTW, I think your explanation above for why you need the info is very useful for others reading this thread and who are trying to understand how the sound system is supposed to work. Specific fixes to specific hardware usually leaves people wondering how the fix fitted into the overall scheme of things for sound in Linux.

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by motsteve

I tried like crazy to figure out the codec part, but my audio is onboard and is the Powermac Tumbler/Awacs info that I gave earlier.

Typically this (finding out the hardware audio codec) can be the trickiest part. Sometimes:
cat /proc/asound/cards
will show the codec, but more than 50% of the time it will not.

But the diagnostic scripts are very good at providing the codec. Hence it would really help if you can download the scripts tsalsa and alsa-info.sh to your hard drive. Then from a terminal/xterm/konsole run alsa-info.sh with: bash alsa-info.sh

And from a terminal/xterm/konsole (with root permissions) run tsalsa with: bash tsalsa

Those scripts will post a bunch of info about your Mac, ... on the mixer settings, and also give the codec that I really need. They will paste that info to a URL that you can then pass to me so I can take a look at it.

In the few cases where I helped a Mac user, I was able to take that "codec", look up in the ALSA-Configuration.txt file what "model" option they needed based on that "codec", and then apply that "model" option to their /etc/modprobe.d/sound file with very exact syntax, and their sound worked.

[motsteve]

I executed the Alsa config sh when I had the old kernel and it is located at 1050185. With the new kernel it has a pastebin.ca address of 1052518.

The tsalsa script returned an address of au5Pvd4E1.

I hope that this is what you want. If not, I'll do it again according to your needs.

[snakedriver]

I don't have a Mac either, but:

Go into Yast and add alsa-tools & alsa mixer.

then in a terminal as root do "alsaconf"
accept the defaults

should finish with an opportunity to test
if there is no sound, open "alsamixer" and make sure there is nothing muted

Let's see what happens

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by snakedriver

if there is no sound, open "alsamixer" and make sure there is nothing muted

Per snakedriver's suggestion I looked again at your mixer settings from tsalsa.txt - nopaste.com (beta)

Amixer contents for card 0 [Tumbler] _____________________________________        
amixer set 'Master',0 75%,75% on        
amixer set 'Headphone',0 on        
amixer set 'Headphone Detection',0 on        
amixer set 'Bass',0 Mono: 0 0%        
amixer set 'Treble',0 Mono: 0 0%        
amixer set 'PCM',0 90%        
amixer set 'PC Speaker',0 off        
amixer set 'Auto Mute',0 on        
amixer set 'Beep',0 15%        
amixer set 'DRC',0 on        
amixer set 'DRC Range',0 Mono: 57 60%

... what is "amixer set 'Auto Mute',0 on " ?? Is that a mute? Is it in the correct position?

Failing that, I think you may need to custom compile alsa, as as far as I can see there are no custom edits to the /etc/modprobe.d/sound for the "PPC tumbler" audio hardware. I notice this for updates to the "tumbler":
Power Mac tumbler updates

Also, I'm curious why you did not post the complete URL from the diagnostic scripts, .. it was a bit painful for me to put the URL together for those scripts, when all you had to do was post the complete URL, as opposed to just a "number".