# sound support and devfs

## slowburn70

Hello,

    I have successfully compiled gentoo onto a sony vaio pcg-f270 notebook. That includes emerging kde/X for the neomagic256av and having that work. The problems i haven't been able to solve:

 1) i cannot get a sound server to work, when entering kde, i get an erro saying /dev/dsp cannot be opened because they do not exist

cat /usr/kde/3/share/sound/pop.wav > /dev/dsp - confirms that it does not exist.

i have tried compiling the kernel; both with OSS/Free compiled into the kernel as a internal component and as a module. neither yieded any sound server. 

my question is? am i doing somethign wrong or is there any advise as to what i should try to get my particuliar sound card to  be recognized. 

my next step is going to try , taking out all sound support from the kernel and installing the OSS/non-Free drivers for my sound card. Will this work or will i run into more trouble. when i had redhat 7.2/7.3 on the same laptop, the OSS/non-Free drivers did in fact made the sound card work properly. will is work the same under gentoo?

2) how do i get devfs to be support in my kernel, same as the sound, i have tried to compile devfs support into the kernel directly and as a module. no matter how i do it, i get the same erro during bootup.

"gentoo's initialization scripts have detected that you do not have devfs support compiled into your kernel, since gentoo needs it... compile it into the kernl, blah blah blah" i get that even with it compiled directly into the kernel. is there a way to fix this or is a complete reinstall going to be necessary. since i have learned some lessons about compiling different things into the kernel, reinstallation would go smoother this time.

sorry for the long post,

any suggestions?

Jon

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## Naan Yaar

Did you check here?

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## slowburn70

<<< 2) how do i get devfs to be support in my kernel, same as the 

<<< sound, i have tried to compile devfs support into the kernel directly <<< and as a module. no matter how i do it, i get the same erro during <<< bootup. 

obviously, i did the ONE thing suggested in that fag you referenced.

Even with :

"How do I enable devfs?

When recompiling your kernel, turn on 'Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers' under 'Code maturity level options', and then look under 'File systems' for '/dev file system support'."

i get the same error saying that devfs is NOT compiled into the kernel.

and i guess you have no advise for my neomagic audio devise not working? the faq included nothing about my question. and your response also included nothing about my questions.

i thought i gave enough information for someone to respond with an intelligent answer instead of a link to a worthless faq (in respect to my question) but obviously i was wrong.

i would really appreciate if someone could offer advise for maybe resolving my original posts issue.

sorry for the long post, 

any suggestions? 

Jon

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## rac

 *slowburn70 wrote:*   

> i get the same error saying that devfs is NOT compiled into the kernel.

 

Is devfs listed in /proc/filesystems?  If not, you may be interested in this post.  But probably not, because it was written by the same bozo that wrote that "worthless faq".

 *Quote:*   

> i guess you have no advise for my neomagic audio devise not working? the faq included nothing about my question. and your response also included nothing about my questions.

 

If you're going to get upset that people post responses to only part of your post, without addressing every single part of it, you might be happier if you ask different questions in different threads.  That way, people who only have something to say about one question can reply in the thread where they feel they can contribute.  Someone might see this thread, and the next time they see a post from slowburn70, they will think "uh oh, I think I might be able to help with part A, but I don't know anything about part B and I don't want to get flambeed like Naan Yaar did", and you might miss out on what could be some useful help.

Do any of the threads that come up in a forum search for "dsp and device" help you?  I got about 60 matches, which I thought might be a manageable number, and several of them looked promising.

EDIT: s/kanuslupus/Naan Yaar/, as neither have avatars and I thinkoed.

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## slowburn70

I didn't mean to imply the FAQ was worthless or "written by a bozo", but in respect to my question the answers in the faq were already covered. 

maybe i wasn't as specific as I thought i was.

Sorry.

you can delete this thread, i will break up the questions.

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## Naan Yaar

Firstly, if you had compiled devfs correctly into your booted kernel, you will not get the error when you boot up that tells you to compile devfs in.  Hence the pointer to the FAQ.  If you have already perused the FAQ, well and good.

If devfs is not working correctly, things under /dev will be out of whack.  This includes /dev/dsp.  Hence, I had no comments w.r.t. your first question.

You want to confirm that you have copied the kernel image correctly to /boot after mounting it if it is a separate partition.  There is a possibility that you are booting from the wrong kernel.

PS. There is no obligation on any forum reader's part to answer all questions you pose in a thread.  If someone points out a piece of documentation that you have already perused, a polite response that you already have or no response at all would be far better than denigrating the information provided.

 *slowburn70 wrote:*   

> <<< 2) how do i get devfs to be support in my kernel, same as the 
> 
> <<< sound, i have tried to compile devfs support into the kernel directly <<< and as a module. no matter how i do it, i get the same erro during <<< bootup. 
> 
> obviously, i did the ONE thing suggested in that fag you referenced.
> ...

 

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## slowburn70

this is what i have done, as far as recompiling the kernel,

i.e. 

make dep && make clean /usr/linux/... bzImage

mv /boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage.orig

cp /usr/..../bzImage /boot

(this includes all of the devfs support)

ls -l /boot shows me the two bzImage.orig and bzImage of varying size.

is this the wrong /boot?

if it is wrong is there another /boot that may be hidden or not mounted, i guess i made the assumption that this was the right /boot

jon

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## Naan Yaar

You seem to be missing a mount /boot step at the location indicated (if your boot is a separate partition as recommended by the install guide).  So, your new kernel may be copied to the boot directory rather than the boot partition (hence, being invisible to grub unless you look for it explicitly).

 *slowburn70 wrote:*   

> ...
> 
> make dep && make clean /usr/linux/... bzImage
> 
> <--- mount missing
> ...

 

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## rac

It can be somewhat confusing, because mountpoints are directories.  If you don't have anything mounted there, they act just like regular directories on the enclosing partition.  For example: 

```
# mount | grep boot

[nothing shows up]

# ls /boot/afo

ls: /boot/afo: No such file or directory

# touch /boot/afo

# ls /boot/afo

/boot/afo

# mount /boot

# ls /boot/afo

ls: /boot/afo: No such file or directory

# ls /boot/bfo

ls: /boot/bfo: No such file or directory

# touch /boot/bfo

# ls /boot/bfo

/boot/bfo

# umount /boot

# ls /boot/?fo

/boot/afo
```

afo is in /boot/afo on the root partition, and bfo is in /bfo on the boot partition.  Moral of the story: if /boot is a separate partition and specified as noauto in /etc/fstab, either do as Naan Yaar suggests in this discussion about /boot and remove "noauto", leaving it mounted all the time, or make sure you mount it with 

```
# mount /boot
```

...before you try to copy anything to it.

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