Do you have another operating system installed on your PC you can test your hardware against? Windows? another linux distribution?
If not, download Sidux, Kanotix, or Knoppix liveCD and test them out with your sound and see if you get an improvement.
Yes, there is a Windows on the machine, and sound works fine… you are right, then it can’t be a sinmple hardware problem.
What about the interrupts? I’m afraid I can’t set anything in BIOS (this is a laptop). Should I try to block yenta somehow?
The sound system module for switching between half-duplex and full duplex is under the “sound & multimedia” menu in the KDE desktop settings. You may want to check that yoy have the kernel-syms package installed as well.
You try increasing the audio buffer size in your desktop audio settings. (wild speculation on my part).
I don’t find the duplex setting, do I need the kernel-syms for that? I’m installing it right now (together with kernel-source).
Where can I adjust that?
I can’t help with a gnome desktop nor KDE4.
With KDE3, for buffer adjustment, one would go under Kmenu > Configure Desktop > Sound & Multimedia > Sound System > General > Buffer
and for duplex control under:
Kmenu > Configure Desktop > Sound & Multimedia > Sound System > Hardware > Duplex …
I still don’t know where to adjust these settings. Is it supposed to be in Yast or in system settings (without root password)? I can’t find it anywhere. I tried to search it on
and the links therein, but I didn’t really find any information, except somewhere I saw that the buffer size should be in the Edit section of the soundcard settings in Yast, in case the soundcard supports such an option. Mine doesn’t offer it.
Do you have any other suggestions?
YES, find out where those settings for your desktop and adjust them.
I’ve found this:
“The dialog’s Edit button calls up an interactive display of driver module configuration options. Depending on your soundcard, these options may be many or few. For example, the virmidi module provides only one …] In contrast, the module options for my SBLive include infrared control enable/disable, maximum number of wavetable synth voices, maximum sample buffer size, and three others.”
And this as an example:
“dlphilp@The3800:~> modinfo snd-emu10k1
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.19-5-rt/kernel/sound/pci/emu10k1/snd-emu10k1.ko
author: Jaroslav Kysela
description: EMU10K1
license: GPL
vermagic: 2.6.19-5-rt SMP preempt mod_unload 586 REGPARM
depends: snd-pcm,snd-util-mem,snd-page-alloc,snd,snd-rawmidi,snd-timer,snd-hwdep,snd-ac97-codec,snd-seq-device
alias: pci:v00001102d00000002svsdbcsci*
alias: pci:v00001102d00000004svsdbcsci*
alias: pci:v00001102d00000008svsdbcsci*
srcversion: 17D45264B5978A64D57C5B7
parm: subsystem:Force card subsystem model. (array of uint)
parm: enable_ir:Enable IR. (array of bool)
parm: max_buffer_size:Maximum sample buffer size in MB. (array of int)
…”
In contrast there is no max_buffer_size in my modinfo output:
linux-5u22:~ # modinfo snd-atiixp
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/updates/alsa/pci/snd-atiixp.ko
license: GPL
description: ATI IXP AC97 controller
author: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
srcversion: 0A064ED1E646D06677ED86B
alias: pci:v00001002d00004382svsdbcsci*
alias: pci:v00001002d00004370svsdbcsci*
alias: pci:v00001002d00004361svsdbcsci*
alias: pci:v00001002d00004341svsdbcsci*
depends: built-in,built-in,snd-ac97-codec,snd-pcm,snd,snd-page-alloc,built-in,built-in,built-in
vermagic: 2.6.27.7-9-default SMP mod_unload modversions 586
parm: index:Index value for ATI IXP controller. (int)
parm: id:ID string for ATI IXP controller. (charp)
parm: ac97_clock:AC’97 codec clock (default 48000Hz). (int)
parm: ac97_quirk:AC’97 workaround for strange hardware. (charp)
parm: ac97_codec:Specify codec instead of probing. (int)
parm: spdif_aclink:S/PDIF over AC-link. (bool)
parm: enable:bool
Do you still think that I should find this option somewhere in my desktop settings?
I will try.
I would not play around with those settings myself. For me it would be a waste of effort with a low probability of return. Far better to write a bug report, and get a suggestion from a dev.
Did you follow up on my suggestion to try a liveCD (such as Sidux, Kanotix, or Knoppix) ? I specifically picked those 3 liveCDs.
The idea is if they work ok, one can study their settings and apply same to openSUSE.
I didn’t want to play with these, I only wanted to support my doubts that I can find the buffer size option somewhere (if it is a soundcard option and mine apparently doesn’t have it).
No, I stopped there because Windows works –> not a hardware problem.
Ahh, ok, got the idea. OK, I will try to boot from a Live CD. What if I get stuck to one of those distros? 
Linux is Linux. If you like one of those distros better than openSUSE, and if they do what you want, then GREAT !! Enjoy them! Linux is Linux !
But its possible you prefer the desktop or polish of openSUSE, but need the functionality that a liveCD provides with some driver or kernel module or configuration. So the idea is if the liveCD does what one wants, then one runs some diagnostics against the liveCD, … figure out what they are doing … and then apply it to openSUSE.
I’m running Kanotix at the moment from a Live CD. When I logged in, I got a message soon saying the sound server crashed with CPU overload, and artsd was mentioned. Haven’t you mentioned something about artsd?
I’ve found the buffer size and the duplex mode among the settings! Now I wonder if SuSE is “clever” and doesn’t offer these options because they are not valid for my soundcard, while the Kanotix menu has all the possible options regardless of the soundcard,
OR Kanotix is “clever” and SuSE is hiding these options somewhere…
“rcalsasound” doesn’t seem to exist, alsaconf can’t terminate certain processes:
Terminating processes: 4108 4108 4108 4108 (with SIGKILL:) 4108.
/etc/init.d/alsa: Warning: Processes using sound devices: 9586(artsd).
Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-atiixp snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-timer snd-page-alloc (failed: modules still loaded: snd-atiixp snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-timer snd-page-alloc).
But alsa doesn’t seem to run at all:
Kanotix:~# rpm -qa | grep alsa
Kanotix:~# rpm -qa | grep pulse
Kanotix:~# rpm -q libasound2
package libasound2 is not installed
Kanotix:~# cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
alias snd-card-0 snd-atiixp
options snd-atiixp index=0
Kanotix:~# cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [IXP ]: ATIIXP - ATI IXP
ATI IXP rev 0 with ALC202 at 0xe8003000, irq 17
Kanotix:~# cat /proc/asound/modules
0 snd_atiixp
Now I’m surprised because speaker-test works (it said “Write error: -32,Broken pipe” before):
Kanotix:~# speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twav
speaker-test 1.0.13
Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
Buffer size range from 2048 to 16384
Period size range from 1024 to 1024
Using max buffer size 16384
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 1024
was set buffer_size = 16384
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 2.683754
0 - Front Left
What do you suggest?
If you wish to read up about arts sound daemon, you may pickup up a few things from the openSUSE sound concepts page. Sound-concepts - openSUSE
Were you using kde3 or kde4 with kanotix?
You will have to surf for the kanotix way to restart alsa.
kanotix does not use rpm. It think it uses .deb files instead of .rpm files, and it uses “apt” instead of “zypper”.
So did you hear the ladies voice?
Do you get the same sound problems with kanotix as you did with openSUSE? This is important !! Its the entire point of this, and I could not find a short description in your post if the sound was better.
If you believe kanotix is superior for audio (to openSUSE), then run the diagnostic script and compare the content of that script, with what you see on the same script output from openSUSE. If kanotix has 1.0.17 or newer of alsa, you can possibly run the script with root permissions with:
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh
you may need to run the script twice. The first time to update and the 2nd time to get the URL.
If that fails, then when running kanotix, with your pc connected to the internet (assuming kanotix has a connection) you could run the script instead this way, copy and pasting this into a konsole:
wget -O alsa-info.sh http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh && bash alsa-info.sh
Konotix may be using a newer driver version. I’ve never had any luck with 48000Hz. Try 44100.
marcilood reported on his opensuse: alsa-driver-kmp-default-1.0.19.20090201_2.6.27.7_9.1-1.1
I doubt that kanotix is using a driver newer than that 1.0.19 of alsa built on 1-Feb-2009.
Could be that he doesn’t have all the required alsa packages installed. Some of the plugin packages may be required such as alsa-plugin-oss. Although some of these packages may seem to not be applicable, they sometimes include needed codecs.That’s a straight quote from the openSuSE SDB as it relates to ALSA.
KDE 3.3.5, I think.
Oh yes, because it’s Debian-based…
Yes, I can hear the voice. The strange thing is that I can’t hear the test sound in the KDE menu. (I wanted to check if I have the weird behaviour with the mouse movement.)
Well, I’m not sure yet. I had the CPU overload message twice after login, which is not very reassuring. Mplayer works, but uses [AO:OSS]. I would be really interested in trying Skype, I downloaded a deb package, but when I try to install it with Kpackage, I get:
dpkg: unable to access dpkg status area: Read-only file system
Do you have any idea how to get around this?
Kanotix uses some old version of alsa (1.0.13-14) and artsd is installed, while in SuSE11.1 there is no artsd…
Well, here is the result of alsa-info.sh:
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=1eb811607e7faf269a24fae3b73621af6e68cd1d
[quote="“marcilood,post:38,topic:20015”]
Well, I’m not sure yet. I had the CPU overload message twice after login, which is not very reassuring. Mplayer works, but uses [AO:OSS]. I would be really interested in trying Skype[/QUOTE]
Is it only Skype where you have this sound problem? That was not clear to me before.
If that is the case (only Skype has the problem), then I can not help you. I know nothing about Skype.
The mixer is identical between the two distributions. … There are differences elsewhere, but there is not point in spending time to figure out the differences if you can not tell if Kanotix sound is superior.
No. I have problems from the moment I log in (log-in sound breaks), I have to restart the soundcard frequently, the test sound stops when I move the mouse…
It’s true that I can use for example mplayer, if I struggle a little bit (sndcard restart etc.), but I can never use Skype. But I don’t think this is an inherent skype-problem, I think it is Skype which suffers the most from of the general problems. So I think the problem should be solved in general, once and for all. (And I definitely want to use Skype, this is another reason for mentioning it.)
Do you have an idea how to use Skype or any other downloadable program with a Live CD?
In the meantime I can report another type of error: in mplayer I have sound, but when I try to adjust the volume (by pressing “9” or “0”) I get
[Mixer] No hardware mixing, inserting volume filter.
[AO_ALSA] Unable to find simple control ‘PCM’,0.
[AO_ALSA] Unable to find simple control ‘PCM’,0. 2% 1% 1.1% 1 0