UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I tried to use the sndconfig tool to set up my sound card. When it does the probe it finds an acer pci sound card, but I have a trident. This wouldn't bother me so much if it worked. Is there a way to configure my sound card by picking it off a list of cards?

The second problem I'm having is that Gnome keeps freezing up. I have a P3 850mhz, 128mb ram, and 128mb swap partition. I can't understand why it keeps coming to a halt.

I love the challenge of figuring these things out but I'm a newbie and I have no clue where to begin.

Crash

Linux does support the Trident chipset, so you should be able to get it to work. I can't help you with the specifics though, as sound cards are not my strong suit.

As far as Gnome freezing up: I bet it is related to your sound card issue. Maybe a conflicting driver, interrupt, or whatever. Gnome will try to play sounds with certain events, so that might be causing the freeze. Check out the <A HREF="http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/">Sound HOWTO</A> as one place to start....

I was thinking the same thing that the sound card and gnome problem being related. It seams like any application that might be related to sound would be running when it freezed up.

I checked the sound how to,and after doing some research I relized I asked the wrong questions to my sound card problems. I'm running linux red hat 7.1 and Win ME off the same hard disk with it's own partitions. I compared the win settings to
the ones that linux was giving me and they where the
same. Linux is using an acer driver for my Trident
sound card just like win and it's using the same
Interrupt Request 11 as win. That's what I think the
problem is.

I checked the /proc/interrupts file to find out that
there are 5 devices on 11. Which is quickly becoming
the norm in windows because of that pci bus steering.
The devices on 11 are (in order) the USB controller,
my ehternet card, 2 for the pcima cards, and the ALI
Audio Accelerator WDM Driver (sound card). I know the
ethernet card is working, but I don't have anything to
test out the usb, our pcima.

In linux I run the sndconfig it finds the correct
driver, then when I try the sound test it just
freezes. I waited once for 20 minutes, but nothing
happen I have to hit crtl-z to start it up again.
This was a contagious problem, in x windows I had to
disable the sound engine otherwise any application
with sound would freeze up linux. I don't have the
isapnp.conf file, but I'm guessing that's because
sndconfig never finishes. I also don't have the
isapnp or pnpdump tools. I don't know if that's also
related to not being able to run sndconfig to the end.

I was thinking that the simple fix would be to change
it from 11 to another open number, but I don't know
how. I'm also worried that if I change that in linux
if it will effect win.

Sorry for the long post guys but I wanted to give out
all the details I had.

Crash