# Compiled ALSA into my kernel, sound card not found [solved]

## jessicavampirehunter

I'm trying to get sound to work on my laptop under ALSA..I followed the Gentoo ALSA guide in the documentation, and everything seemed to work fine, but when I get to the part where I run alsaconf, it claims it can't find my sound card.

lspci -v | grep -i audio yields:

0000:00:14.5 Multimedia audio controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP150 AC'97 Audio Controller

I know this is correct, and that the driver is called atiixp.  I found it in the kernel listings, under Sound-->ALSA-->PCI Devices-->ATI IXP AC'97 Controller, and it should be compiled as a module.

Adding the line

ALSA_CARDS="atiixp"

to my /etc/make.conf file made amaroK not complain when I opened it, but it didn't fix alsaconf.

I am so confused.  Could someone tell me what's going on, please?

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## adaptr

Did you load the module ?

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## jessicavampirehunter

I thought so, but maybe not.  How do I load the module?

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## dsd

you can load it with "modprobe snd_atiixp" but you shouldnt have to do this (alsaconf should handle it)

does the correct module appear under "modprobe -l" listings?

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## jessicavampirehunter

modprobe snd_atiixp yields:

```
Note: /etc/modules.conf is more recent than /lib/modules/2.6.12-gentoo-r6/modules.dep

modprobe: QM_MODULES: Function not implemented

modprobe: QM_MODULES: Function not implemented

modprobe: Can't locate module snd_atiixp

```

modprobe -l | grep atiixp yields:

```
modprobe: QM_MODULES: Function not implemented

```

I didn't even have modprobe at first...I had to unmerge the mod package that was blocking modutils and emerge modutils.  But at least now that is working.

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## codergeek42

DO you have loadable module support in your kernel configuration?

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## jessicavampirehunter

Yep.  Well, I should, anyway.  I'm loading my network card driver (8139too) as a module, and it loads fine at boot.

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## ph03n1x

Errm he said he compiled alsa into the kernel so there's of course no module.

I wouldn't compile it into the kernel. Then you can use modules and are more flexible... when you compile it into the kernel you always get an error when also tries to load the module which of course doesn't exist. Maybe it already worked and you just have to unmute the channels...

 :Question: 

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## jessicavampirehunter

I want my computer to require as little maintenance as possible...from the ALSA guide, it seemed that compiling it into the kernel would let me do that, whereas compiling it as a module would require me to re-emerge alsa-utils after every kernel update.

Incidentally,

```
alsamixer
```

 yields

```

alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory

```

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## ph03n1x

Well for little maintenance gentoo is maybe the wrong distro  :Wink: 

And for troubleshooting it's for sure easier if you compile it as a module because you don't have to recompile the whole kernel when your settings are wrong. And when you compile a new kernel compiling the alsa module is probably the least time and effort consuming part...

But it's of course your choice  :Very Happy: 

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## jessicavampirehunter

Hee.  Well, I guess I can put all the maintenance in an initscript or something.

I'll try using the module instead.  Do I need to uncheck everything relevant in my kernel config before I do that?

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## ph03n1x

Yup you have to remove all alsa stuff from the kernel and then follow the alsa guide again.

If you're really too "lazy" maintaining your system regularly gentoo is the wrong choice for you. Go for a Mandriva, Suse, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Knoppix or whatever but gentoo needs maintenance. There's a lot of "handwork" involved when you want to keep your gentoo-system steadily secure and up to date. Config files have to be updated semi-manually whereas with other distros you are not bothered with this kind of stuff... also emerging all the software takes time especially for big packages like kde, gnome, xorg, ... and that's just the tip of the iceberg  :Wink: 

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## dsd

 *jessicavampirehunter wrote:*   

> I didn't even have modprobe at first...I had to unmerge the mod package that was blocking modutils and emerge modutils.  But at least now that is working.

 

eek!

modutils is for 2.4 and will not work on 2.6. you want module-init-tools.

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## RiBBiT

I have ALSA compiled directly in the kernel, but ALSA itself loads the appropriate module for the soundcard. So I don't think this has anything to do with whether ALSA is compiled as a module or not.

```
sork ~ $ lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by

snd_intel8x0           28864  0

snd_ac97_codec         78392  1 snd_intel8x0

nvidia               3464700  12

```

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## jessicavampirehunter

Yes, emerging modutils was a mistake...fortunately, is now fixed.

lsmod doesn't yield snd-atiixp or anything else that might be related to my sound card.

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## jessicavampirehunter

Ahaha!  It works, it works!  It turns out I made a mistake following the directions...there was a line saying "Important: genkernel users say genkernel --menuconfig here." and instead I did cd /usr/src/linux, make menuconfig.  That fixed it.   (duh.  I feel dumb)

Thanks everyone!

~Jessica

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