# SB Live Value install woes

## Martin

Hi all,

I'm trying to get sound configured by following the Desktop Configuration Guide, but I seem to be running into a problem that I have not found a solution for.

The problem is that (using both the "Alsa" and "standard kernel sound modules" methods) the modprobe emu10k1 or modprobe snd-emu10k1 step always returns a init_module: No such device error.

Doing a cat /proc/pci | grep audio returns:

Multimedia audio controller: Craetive Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 8 ).

Any ideas as to what I should try?

Thank you in advance for your help.

----------

## rac

Presumably you checked your IO and IRQ settings, like insmod warns you about.  Perhaps you are unable to load the driver as a module because it is already compiled into the kernel?  You can check the boot messages; on the system I have with an emu10k1, the relevant lines look like this:

```

Creative EMU10K1 PCI Audio Driver, version 0.18, 12:30:23 Jun  4 2002

emu10k1: EMU10K1 rev 5 model 0x8040 found, IO at 0xe400-0xe41f, IRQ 10

```

----------

## tba

i set up gentoo on another computer (not this one) whith a sb live and it was super easy.  i built sb live! driver into my kernel and thats it.  I didnt even get to the alsa part in the install docs.  as soon as i started kde it worked fine.

did you build it into the kernel or as a module?

----------

## Martin

rac, thank you for your help.

 *rac wrote:*   

> Presumably you checked your IO and IRQ settings, like insmod warns you about.

 

This is where I'm lost - where can I check (and most importantly, set) these values? I have read the /usr/share/doc/alsa-driver-x/install doc, but it mentions no paramaters for changing IRQ values for the module snd-emu10k1.

 *rac wrote:*   

> Perhaps you are unable to load the driver as a module because it is already compiled into the kernel?

 

I double checked, and only sound support is enabled [*]. No sound modules are compiled.

 *rac wrote:*   

> You can check the boot messages; on the system I have with an emu10k1, the relevant lines look like this:
> 
> ```
> 
> Creative EMU10K1 PCI Audio Driver, version 0.18, 12:30:23 Jun  4 2002
> ...

 

Again, I get the device not found message.

What I'll try to do first is swap PCI slots, hoping that helps. If it doesn't, I'm going to have to find a way of changing the IRQ, DMA, etc values somewhere.

 *Quote:*   

> i set up gentoo on another computer (not this one) whith a sb live and it was super easy. i built sb live! driver into my kernel and thats it. I didnt even get to the alsa part in the install docs. as soon as i started kde it worked fine. 

 

tba, thanks for your input. I tried your method as well, but am getting the same error. Ideally I'd like to install Alsa using Gnome.

----------

## delta407

It's a plug-and-play card, so you can't change the IRQ and DMA settings, as they are set up automagically by forces beyond your control. Though, some BIOS implementations assign IRQs by PCI slots, so moving it around can make a difference. (My KT7 mobo, for instance, does this; it's using an Award BIOS.)

As far as Alsa not liking your emu10k1 card... it should.  :Wink:  Your /proc/pci shows that the kernel can talk to the card, so Alsa should too. (No, I'm not being helpful with that; I know.)

----------

## Martin

 *delta407 wrote:*   

> It's a plug-and-play card, so you can't change the IRQ and DMA settings, as they are set up automagically by forces beyond your control.

 

This is what I suspected. :O(

 *delta407 wrote:*   

> Though, some BIOS implementations assign IRQs by PCI slots, so moving it around can make a difference. (My KT7 mobo, for instance, does this; it's using an Award BIOS.)

 

I tried it without luck.

 *delta407 wrote:*   

> As far as Alsa not liking your emu10k1 card... it should.  Your /proc/pci shows that the kernel can talk to the card, so Alsa should too.

 

Looks like something is fucked.

I'm going to re-install (again) since I want to get the installation down cold. Just for kicks, this time I'll do KDE instead of Gnome.

One note: should I compile sound support as a module or built in?

----------

## delta407

You don't have to reinstall, but if you want to, go right ahead.  :Wink:  Be sure to use multiple virtual consoles if you haven't already.

Also, I tend to leave sound as a module, since when the drivers are modprobed they will automatically load dependencies, such as the sound modules.

----------

## rac

Well, I certainly don't want to disagree with delta, but I'm not sure it's as bleak as all that.  According to http://www.scyld.com/expert/irq-conflict.html, which looks like it was written by the guy that wrote lots of the kernel networking code, assignment of IRQs to PCI cards is done by the mobo, which means you can use your BIOS settings to move them around.

Another tool that might help you in diagnosing problems like this is lspci, which gives more information than just reading /proc/pci.  emerge sys-apps/pciutils and

```
$ lspci -v -b
```

You should be able to see what interrupt your  sblive has been assigned (or 0 or 255 if it hasn't got one at all).  For example, on one of my hosts I have:

```

00:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 05)

   Subsystem: Creative Labs CT4760 SBLive!

   Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10

   I/O ports at e400

   Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

```

Look for documentation on how to move PCI IRQs around in your BIOS, remove or swap out as many other cards as you can that may be having conflicts, and keep the faith.  You will get it working eventually.

----------

## Martin

rac, thank you very much for your help once again!

 *rac wrote:*   

> Another tool that might help you in diagnosing problems like this is lspci, which gives more information than just reading /proc/pci.

 

Using this util I was able to play around with various bios settings. When I ran it first, I noticed that my SBLive wasn't even listed there - but there were a lot of IRQ's being taken up by my onboard Promise controller that I don't even use. So I quickly went ahead and disabled it.

Now the sound works like a charm.

Thank you once again.

Now I'm off to get other things working. With the wonderful help of this forum, I managed to install gentoo, gnome, fluxbox, eterm, mozilla, and sound all in a stretch of 2 days. :O) (Re-installing from scratch a couple of times too).

Things on the todo list:

-login to fluxbox with gdm instead of console

-get a file browser (nautilis or konqueror?)

-config fluxbox

-browse my NTFS partitions

I'm off!

----------

## delta407

 *rac wrote:*   

> assignment of IRQs to PCI cards is done by the mobo, which means you can use your BIOS settings to move them around.

 

Assuming your BIOS allows you to, yes. Some don't.

 *rac wrote:*   

> Look for documentation on how to move PCI IRQs around in your BIOS, remove or swap out as many other cards as you can that may be having conflicts, and keep the faith.  You will get it working eventually.

 

That's a good plan.  :Wink: 

----------

