RedHat 7.3 sound problem

[Ionut Grigorescu_2]

Hi all,

I have installed RH 7.3 in dual-boot with Windows 2000 on a HP Omnibook 4150A. Prior to install W2K I have performed a BIOS Upgrade - because of power management related problems in Windows2000 and Omnibook 4000 series notebooks.
The sound server cannot be started in RH 7.3 - the sounds are re-directed to /dev/null. I have tried to re-configure the sound with sndconfig, but when the system tries to send a sound sample to the detected sound card it freezes and I have to restart from the RESET button.
Is there any issue on the sound card on Omnibook 4000 series under RedHat

[Craig Gilmore]

Sound with RedHat has always been a challenge. However, there is some hope.

Take a look at:

http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/redhat6/hardware/full_page.html

The Omnibook 4150A uses a NeoMagic sound card.

You can find further help from google.com by using the keywords: linux sound omnibook 4150

[Manuel Wolfshant · Accepted solution]

option 1: sndconfig
option 2: use alsa instead of the drivers provided by the kernel. as you might know already, the series 2.5 of the kernel replaced OSS with alsa. you might wish to try directly http://valhalla.freshrpms.net/rpm.html?id=549 where binaries precompiled for rh7.3 are available.
option 3: use the comercial oss drivers (ftp.opensound.com). however, this drivers

[Ionut Grigorescu_2]

Hi Manuel,

thank you for the link, I have to give it a try today.
I have already re-tried with sndconfig and it detects the NeoMagic 256AV card but when it tries to send a sound sample to it I receive an error, something like /dev/dsp is not found. When I've tried to ll /dev/dsp I found it there (character device owned by root) however strings /dev/dsp reports - 'not such a device' (ok, something similar, I don't remember exactly).
But I shall try also with ALSA - what is with your 3'rd option?

Regards,
ionu