Command Line Interface

Oh! Okay, I understand now. I just put in a new thread for my sound problem here so maybe we can get more help.

Just to let you know, I started aRts on the taskbar and suddenly, I started getting like a thumping sound but it sparatic. I chnaged the XMMS output to aRts and I just got more thumping so I am making progress but still, puzzling as all get out.

I haven't had the best luck with arts, so I set xmms to use the alsa plugin. You might get over that throbbing with an upgrade. Have you done that yet?

How do you do this upgrade??

Also, what does modprobe.conf show anyway?? I was asked about the info in that file on another thread.

Well, I am off to work but let me know how this upgrade is done so when I get home, I can get right to it because I want this problem history.

The upgrade you are talking about is for the official, right??

If you had gotten your sources set up at easyurpmi to point to the "official" directory on the server, you'll be pulling in official. I don't know if you'll have official until you uprgrade the kernel (I did - actually, I'm using a "tmb" kernel right now, which is supposed to be experimental, so we'll see.lol). Actually, I was referring to an upgrade of the packages in the distro. You can do that by opening MCC, clicking on packages, choosing meida manager, then clicking on update (on the right). I select the mirror sources with a check mark and click ok. That updated your package list. I then close that and open "install". I choose the bottom "list by update availability" and select the updated stuff. One think I noticed is that urpmi can only handle 10-20 packages at a time, ir it'll get freaked out and stop, but its pretty good. Dependancies get resolved properly. That's how I updated xmms, etc.

Its a configuration file used by modprobe (the module loader - same as driver loader for windows) to determine settings that should be in place at bootup. Same as /etc/modprobe.preload is a place to "force" a module to load when hotplug, etc don't see the hardware.

Here's what I want you to do, since you're not afraid of opening the cover or your computer (I read the other thread). Open the case and find the biggest chip on the sound card and write down the exact name of it - preserve the case - and report back (LOL). Perhaps it uses another popular chipset that has a module. If you have a dud card, you might want to report it to the ALSA folks, if its not already on their bug-squashing list, as I'm sure they would love to get it working - there are a lot of Dell workstations out there with those cards in them (I can think of about 200 at work)

The shipset says "Creative" on it...so it is a true Creative Sound Blaster Live! card. I was thinking it was one of those dud cards but it is a true card....I was thinking about buying a whole new card to make sure it really was a Creative card but it is, so I won't need a new card. I just need to figure out what in the heck is causing my problems.

By the way, on the updates, it doesn't give me an option for mirror sites but it has like "plf", "main", "contrib", and "updatesource", plus like cdrom(1, 2 & 3) but only selected the first 4 I mentioned. If you want me to, I will also update the cdrom stuff.

I also have another question for you. I am looking to upgrade my motherboard but it probably won't be for some time and I wanted to know if there was anything I had to do in Mandy for it or just do the upgrade and it will detect everything again, much like Windows, but MUCH better.

A motherboard upgrade should go fine. Read the HCL first, of course, for suggestions. I don't know about some of the nforce chipsets, but others here have been there. They can tell you, if the search button doesn't yeild good results. I saw somewhere a thread about difficulties with Dell soundblasters. Where did I find that thread? What is the # on the chip? My SB Live! Gamer has EMU10K1 written on it.

Mine as well but the exact numbers on it are EMU10K1_SEF along with several other numbers and letters...like 2593812.1 222HR948

You can download it from:
ftp://ftp.phys.ttu.edu/pub/mandrakel...iso/10.0/i586/
ftp://ftp.umr.edu/pub/linux/mandrake...iso/10.0/i586/
ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors...iso/10.0/i586/

There is a long list of FTP sites on Mandrakelinux.com - just click on Download and then say that you're already a member. Basically, you have to pay for support (aka mandrake club). The Mandrake distro itself is free unlike many other Linux distributions these days.