Koba

Hi, Could someone please please help me try and get audio working on Ubuntu (or any linux distro for that matter)? I have tried and tried to no avail and I would be really grateful if someone could help me out. I have an onboard soundcard - a Realtek ALC 880 and I have found some drivers for it here: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dlhd...0Audio%20CODECs I have followed the instructions as best I could. First I installed the kernel sources for my system and then followed the instructions to the letter: *** The source code copy from www.alsa-project.org. ver:R3.1 Linux Source Code for ALC audio codec Installation: This Source Code is from www.alsa-project.org. For driver installation, please follow below steps. Step 1. unzip source code tar xfvj azx-021705.tar.bz2 Step 2. Turn on sound support (soundcore module, default turn on) Step 3. Complied source code a. ./configure b. make c. make install d. ./snddevices Step 4. Edit your /etc/modules.conf or conf.modules depending on the distribution (Please refer to the attached modules.conf) Step 5. reboot your machine Note: 1. The most detail information, can refer the alsa-kernel/Documenttation/ALSA-Configuration.txt in the azx-021705.tar.bz2. 2. Kernel Version must be 2.2.14 or later. 3. All mixer channels are muted by default. You must use a native or OSS mixer program to unmute appropriate channels. 4. If can not compile the source code, try to rename the /usr/src/linux-2.x -> /usr/src/linux. 5. The driver added to support the SPDIF functoin. 6. Suggest use alsamixer to control mixer function. you can find it in the alsa-utils-0.9.4 (www.alsa-project.org). 7. a. You can download the alsa-lib-1.0.8 and alsa-utils-1.0.8 form the www.alsa-project.org, then unzip and install them. b. Used "alsaconf" can autodetect which drive you need to install (step 4). *** When I do ./configure I get this: checking for directory with kernel source... /usr/src/linux checking for kernel version... The file /usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h does not exist. Please, install the package with full kernel sources for your distribution or use --with-kernel=dir option to specify another directory with kernel sources (default is /usr/src/linux). There is no /include/linux/version.h! What should I do? Thank you, Koba

Ok...you guys were right all along. Gentoo is for someone new to linux a VERY difficult distro to install. Of course, with persistence anything is possible. I can see Gentoo is what I will eventually be using (unless I find something better than Portage) but for now I'll leave it as a work in progress. In the meantime I really need a ready-to-run distro so I'm taking your advice and downloading MEPIS. It simply makes no sense to install Gentoo now when in less than a months time I'll have a new laptop/desktop. At least I've learnt a LOT so far from my experiments with Gentoo: -How to use fdisk -How to perform a stage 3 install -How to configure the Grub -How to use the .profile script -A little how X works So now I'm downloading MEPIS. All I need is more CD-R's (linux distros keep swallowing up cds :x. Koba

Good news! I have got Gentoo working. I was forced to format my windows partition and reinstall XP (it had become syware infested, adware ridden, virus infected useless pile of junk - which is almost good for Microsoft). Microsoft being the open-minded people they are didn't allow me to keep my Gentoo partitions ("too many partitions!" it complained) so I had to reinstall gentoo as well. I reinstalled Gentoo exactly the same way except for leaving the noatime option for the root partition in fstab. So now it works! There are a few things I have noted though: -Message at boot: "missing kernel or user mode driver hw-random" -"You must set /etc/hostname to a valid hostname" These messages haven't stopped me doing anything - they are just annoying. Any ideas how to get rid of them? I have emerged the kde package though I have no idea what to do now. Can anyone point out where I should go to get a desktop environment? Thanks Koba

Hi Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. The CD-Rom mounted fine and I could see all the folders on it with ls. I then did: export PKGDIR="/mnt/cdrom". That generated no errors. Only when I tried emerge -usepkg kde or emerge -usepkg gnome did I get the above error. There were many error messages at boot so I can't remember what they were exactly. They also flashed past very quickly but I got the impression that it was complaining about read-only files. I think its my hard drive partitions with this problem not the CDRom. Of course, I could be wrong. Koba

Hoorah! Some progress. I followed the link and tried using fewer arguments to the kernel. At least gentoo loaded (I reached the localhost prompt) even though there were error messages beforehand. I mounted the cdrom but couldn't use any of the package files as I got this error: Quote: OSError=[Error30] Read-only file system '/var/cache/ebd/dep//app-dev/' Looks like I set one of my partitions as read-only. Not quite sure what went wrong there. Any ideas? Anyway, thanks for your help. Maybe next week I'll have something linux to enjoy Koba

Hi again I spent all day yesterday trying to get it working. First I tried to leave fstab alone as it looked reasonable (forgetting it had all been commented out). Then I didn't bother editing fsdisk - so the compile went all wrong. Then I started for a third time where I made a typo in the grub loader - dh instead of hd. I got round that from within GRUB but I still have the same boot error. Firstly I don't seem to get any error messages before the one stated. I'm afraid I'm not really sure what the real_root option signifies but I set it to hda4 as that corresponds to the partition used in the manual. As for the fstab entry, I have no way of telling what I put. Once I used the default fstab setting and once I used bits from my RedHat fstab. Am I meant to use the reiserfs noatime options? Thanks for your help. I'm starting to get desperate as Windows is driving me mad. I do not know how I managed to use it all those years ago. I'll sign up to the Gentoo forum to see if I can get the problem resolved there. Thanks again! Koba

Hi Thanks for your help. I've been using my computer a little too much recently so I've got funny little registers floating in my head when I sleep at night and I sometimes mumble things like "The preprocessor directives are ALL wrong!!" while dreaming (only kidding - I'm not that bad yet). Anyway, I woke up this morning remembering what might have gone wrong. In fstab, there wasn't enough space to seperate the fields: i had something like /gentoo/bootext3 with no space between boot and ext3. I was trying to keep everything in the columns given. Do you think this may have been the problem? Do I have to keep everything in those columns? Anyway, in the meantime, I'll try doing what you said in your post above. Thanks Koba

Hi I'm afraid I can't seem to access the actual /boot/grub/grub.conf file anymore. The shell mentioned in the error message above doesn't seem to do much. Do you have any ideas how I should find grub.conf again? Anyway, I do know what I was trying to set grub.conf to: Quote: default 0 timeout 30 splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz title = Gentoo root (hd0,1) kernel /kernel-2.4.26-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/hda4 vga792 initrd /initrd-2.4.26-gentoo-r6 title = Windows XP root (hd0,0) makeactive chainloader +1 Whether this was the right idea or not, I do not know. I'll play around with the GRUB once it is loaded to try to find out what is going wrong. I used genkernel to compile. Only once I am confident with the easiest install method will I try anything fancy Thanks Koba

Hi So I had a bloody go at installing Gentoo. Incredibly I almost go to the end of the installation without a hitch. I deleted the boot partition I had from before and made a new one (which was an act of faith seeing I don't have an XP boot disk). Incredibly, I managed to set the GRUB to boot XP ok. If I try to load gentoo from GRUB i get the following: Quote: Mounting root... mount: Mounting /dev/hda3 on /newroot failed: Invalid argument >>Could not mount the specified ROOT, try again >>The root block device is unspecified or not detected >>Please specify a device to boot, or "shell" for a shell... boot():: Here is how I tried to set up the partitions with fdisk: hda1 = Windows XP partition hda2 = Boot partition hda3 = Swap partition hda4 = Root partition Can anyone please help me? Koba

Quote: If you run into issues with the install, since it is different than most Indeed. I've read the installation documentation MANY times and now I think I have some idea of what I am doing. I've made loads of notes on what to do and shall have a go today. I think if anything will go wrong it is getting the boot loader configured. Everything else I have met in some way or another before. Seeing I'm doing a stage 3 install, I would hope that I don't have to worry too much about setting up KDE/GNOME. We'll see Koba

Thats settled then. I just HAVE to try Portage. When I understood the concept and saw the software database I was completely sold out on the idea. Thanks guys for pointing out MEPHIS to me though...I will also try it out some time (very soon if I have problems with Gentoo) Thanks! Koba

Thanks! Just a few thoughts before I decide. -I have synaptic for RH9. Is the MEPIS/Debian apt-get have a more comprehensive repository than what I have seen with RedHat? -Portage compiles from the source which will be available for 99% of the software I use. This sounds good as long as the compiling procedure is almost completely automated (I don't mind waiting if I am confident it will work). -Gentoos list of 7000 + seems pretty comprehensive (even amazing). I search for "pixie", "blender", "bluefish", "anjuta" (the software I have learnt to use) and there are matches for all of them! I'm dumbfounded. If this list means "automated downloading and compiling" then I'm all for it! -Most of the worry with RedHat9 is that you a) haven't fully read the documentation (which takes time) and it won't work on your system c) Having to be tied to your computer to give instructions and look out for errors. The compile time isn't a problem as long as I can think of something else while it is happening. -MEPIS installs divX, realplayer, java etc automatically which is great. -MEPIS has great hardware support which is very helpful. I'm kinda torn between MEPIS and Gentoo now. Could someone point me out to the repository that MEPIS uses so I can check out how extensive it is? Thanks for your replies! Koba

Hello everyone Its been a while since I've been on this forum but now I'm back. Thanks to help from people here I have been using Red Hat 9 happily for a few months. Well maybe not so happily... I'm never going back to Windows now but I really hope I can get a better distro. I've found RedHat great when you want to maintain status quo but installing software can be a nightmare. I'm getting a new laptop soon so I am planning to get a new distro. I've found that the configure, make, make install cycle time-consuming, tedious and unreliable (especially if there are dependencies involved). All to often I just give up. And rpms aren't that great either. Sometimes I think back to the Windows "setup.exe" files with longing... I know that with so many distros the make, install cycle is sometimes the only way (there is no way to cater to everyone's needs when there are so many linux choices out there) but surely there is there an easier way? I've become scared of installing software of RedHat because it takes so so long... I want a freely downloadable distro. Of course, I still want make, gcc and the usual tools. I'm looking into Gentoo as Portage seems to help a lot. Does anyone have any experiance of Gentoo? Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance for your help Koba

Hi Maybe I can help someone . Here is how I have done it on my system: -15GB WindowsXP © drive formatted to FAT32 for access from linux -25GB for the linux installation. -Other system partitions to their default values. This is EXACTLY how I got my dual boot system (It is pretty straightforward). -Insert WinXP CD and boot. - Start an installing and when you get to formatting options do the following: >Delete existing data partitions. >Create a new partition from the unpartioned space (using ONLY the space what you want WindowsXP partition to take up) >Format the drive as FAT32 (so you can mount the windows drive from linux for access). -Once WinXP is installed insert the RedHat9 CD and reboot. -Install linux in the remaining unpartitioned space. -Configure the boot loader (I use GRUB) Hope this helps. Koba

Hi Personally, I don't agree with paying for Linux (or any software for that matter). Doesn't mean programmers will be out of a job: gnu.org sets out new business strategies for software companies. I've seen a post somewhere saying Linux is licensed under GPL and BSD is true GNU. I've always thought of GPL being a particular implementation (license) of GNU. I'll have to check the details of the GPL license. What is important to me is: -Can never become proprietry. -Sources will always have to remain open. -Free distribution. I would say using Lindows is going to be better than using Window (especially for the "average" user) but paying for it defeats the spirit of open source software. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and this is mine. Koba