sorry if there's already a post about this, but I didn't find it; here's the question:
Installed Mandrake 9.0; during installation process, I was asked if I had an ISA soundcard; answer:"Yes", computer tells me: "make sure you run sndconfig after you finish install process... good, so that's what I've done:

sndconfig:
everything's ok, he found my SB AWE64 ISA sound card, played the sound, I heard it... ok!
But; back in the KDE, there, no sound, tried to reboot, nothing.

Does anybody has a step-by-step answer so I can configure this?
I found several pages with information, but none enough "easy for me".

Thanks a lot

I had the EXACT same problem when I tried Mandrake! All it ended up being was that I had not used a mixer to turn up the volume (and the speakers were at about 1/8th which was nearly off ;-z ). Hopefully, that's it. Then again, that's one newbie to another...

thanks, but I already checked the volume to be sure I would hear something if I played some...
The problem seems to be elsewhere.
I didn't mentionned it before, when I try to play a sound with XMMS f.ex, the computer crashes, and I can't look in the console to find out what's going wrong.
So if there is a manipulation to have a log file, I'd like to learn it, so I could give some more accurate information about 'crashes'...

THX a lot

Some other informations:
in the TAB of KMix it's written Soundblaster, so is it because 'he' knows it or just the TAB by default?

in the Mandrake Control Center, no sound card visible

I found your posting while looking for something else, but thought that the following information may be helpful to you. I am successfully using a Soundblaster AWE Gold under Mandrake 9.1, and it works very well with most audio applications under both KDE and Gnome, including Kmid (using the sound card 8 MB GM sample to play MIDI files), XMMS (good general audio player), Noteedit (great KDE2/Qt2 based note editor) and others. Unfortunately, I still have some problems with some newer beta applications (e.g. Rosegarden4), which is why I was looking here for tips.

I posted a lot of this as a reply to another user, but thought I would post it here too, as it may also be of help? You may not have the right packages loaded or a configuration problem, so (hopefully!), the following procedure may help you understand better what is going on:


1. First of all, open any terminal and su (substitute user) to root (or - , for quickness)...

bash-2.05b$ su -
Password:
[root@richlnx root]#

2. Make a temporary directory under the /root one (where you will be), and change into it, e.g.....

[root@richlnx root]# mkdir mytmp
[root@richlnx root]# cd mytmp
[root@richlnx mytmp]#


3. Enter the following commands, one after another after you get the command prompt back. This will save the results in text files ...

uname -a > uname.txt
modprobe -l | grep isa/sb > modprobesb.txt
rpm -q -a | grep multimedia > multimedia.txt
rpm -q -a | grep linuxconf > rpmlinuxconfig.txt
rpm -q -a | grep alsa > alsa.txt


4. Here are the text file contents when I run these commands ...

a. uname.txt

Linux richlnx.christchurch 2.4.21-0.13mdk #1 Fri Mar 14 15:08:06 EST 2003 i686 unknown unknown GNU/Linux

(I am actually running Mandrake 9.1 on this machine - ignore the date!)

b. modprobesb.txt

/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-emu8000-synth.o
/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sb-common.o
/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sb16-csp.o
/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sb16-dsp.o
/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sbawe.o

(these entries seem to show that everything for my Soundblaster AWE64 Gold is available)

c. multimedia.txt

kdemultimedia-3.1-10mdk
kdemultimedia-aktion-3.1-10mdk
kdemultimedia-devel-3.1-10mdk

(you don't NEED the last two, but must have the first one for sound under kde)

d. rpmlinuxconfig.txt

linuxconf-lib-1.29r3-2mdk
gnome-linuxconf-0.67.1-7mdk
linuxconf-1.29r3-2mdk

(the Linux Config packages so that you can run it under X or not)

e. alsa.txt

kalsatools-1.2.8-4mdk
libalsa2-0.9.0-0.14rc7.1mdk
libalsa2-devel-0.9.0-0.14rc7.1mdk
pd-alsa-jack-extended-0.36-1mdk
libalsa-data-0.9.0-0.14rc7.1mdk
xmms-alsa-0.9.7-3mdk

(you will not NEED all of these, especially the devel and jack entries)

You might also like to run the Sound System - KDE Control Module to check your settings...

K > Configuration > KDE > Sound > Sound System (via my menu when running KDE)

Under the aRTs tab I use:

- Start aRts soundsverer on KDE startup - ON
- Run soundserver with realtime priority - ON
- Autosuspend if idle for 60 sec
- Display messages using artsmessage
- Message display: Errors

... everything else not used.

(and I can hear the default KDE startup sound when I click the Test Sound button)

Under the Sound I/O tab I use:

- Sound I/O method: Autodetect
- Use custom sampling rate: 48000
- Sound quality: Autodetect
- Audio Buffer Size (response time): 128 milliseconds (6 fragments with 4096 bytes)

Under the MIDI tab I see:

- Sound Blaster 16 - External Midi Port
- AWE Midi Emu - External Midi Port
- AWE32-0.4.4 (RAM12288k)

(with the last one of these selected which uses the 8 MB General MIDI sample loaded on my card for playing MIDI stuff)

If you still have problems going from here, perhaps you would like to post the contents of the text files produced as a reply? I am no expert myself, either, but may be able to assist.

Best Regards...