# Kernel 2.6 and ALSA

## prophecy

Yhea,

	so...  I have installed 2.6.5, and had it running for a while and I also never removed the alsa stuff from the old 2.4 install.  Now, after pushing an emerge world through things just arn't working right.  My artsd is not working and I am guessing that it is an alsa issue since the error looks like the following:

ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe

So, was I supposed to unmerge the alsa stuff when I moved to 2.6, and what am I supposed to do now, or is it just re-emerging artsd.

Justace

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## agent_jdh

The package you do not need any more is alsa-driver, you should still use alsa-lib and alsa-utils.  The alsasound init script which loads the relevant alsa kernel modules (assuming you have compiled the alsa stuff as modules) and saves/restores the mixer settings is now in the alsa-utils package (it used to be in alsa-driver).

You should also try and make sure the alsa-lib and alsa-utils versions installed match the alsa driver revision that the kernel you use has - you can find this out by doing cat /proc/asound/version

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## prophecy

Humm,

	It is not.  Every time that there is an upgrade for the alsa-utils and alsa-lib modules do I need to recompile the kernel?  I will unmerge alsa-driver for now though.

My version listed in the proc is 1.0.4rc2 which is from 2.6.5-gentoo-r1.

The currently installed version of alsa-lib is 1.0.5

Justace

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## agent_jdh

 *prophecy wrote:*   

> It is not.

 

What is not?

 *prophecy wrote:*   

> Every time that there is an upgrade for the alsa-utils and alsa-lib modules do I need to recompile the kernel?

 

No.

 *prophecy wrote:*   

> My version listed in the proc is 1.0.4rc2 which is from 2.6.5-gentoo-r1.
> 
> The currently installed version of alsa-lib is 1.0.5

 

That should be OK.

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## prophecy

Well,

	This is depressing.  It seems as though after I upgraded the alsa stuff my arts does not want to work correctly.  Although its correctness before the upgrade was questionable.  I guess I will have to dig deeper.

Justace

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## agent_jdh

Assuming you're using alsa as kernel modules, delete the /lib/modules/(kernel version) folder and re-install the kernel modules from /usr/src/linux by running make modules_install

I'm guessing that your emerge world has replaced the alsa modules from the kernel with the ones from alsa-driver.

It may be that there is just a straightforward bug with that alsa driver version for your particular sound card.

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## prophecy

I have alsa in the kernel staticly.  Therefore it should not even be loading the modules.  What you state makes good sence, but if it did do that then would the module version reported in the proc be newer to reflect the incorrect module, ie: the new module instead of the regular one that came with the kernel?

Justace

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## BiOCHiP

Does the user as who you try to run arts has permission to use the sound device? Try to run arts as root and see what happens.

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## prophecy

Same responce.

Justace

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