More sound problems

[phillvs]

I have installed LM5 for the first time recently. I have previously had a whole range of Linuxes installed on this machine, usually as a multi-boot. Sometimes KDE other times Gnome. This time, for the first time, I have found that the sound system doesn't work. The error is:

Failed to connect stream: Invalid argument [ - from Rhythmbox]
MPlayer interrupted by signal 13 in module: play_audio
Autodetect: Failed to connect stream: Invalid argument [ - this was from the Mutimedia System Selector, default output test button]
ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture: Could not open audio device for recording [ - this was from the Mutimedia System Selector, default input test button]

Although I said that this was the first time linux has had this problem, now I think about it, I seem to remember that when I installed Ubuntu last month (the new Hardy) that displayed the same problem but I didn't leave it on long enough to really test it before wiping it off and installing the LM5 (first install of this distro for me). That would make sense given the base for LM5. I have also installed Fedora on a separate partition two days ago, just to see what the new Fedora is offering and that has no problem with the sound/multimedia at all. Any help would be gratefully received because I really want to get LM5 working well as it seems to be about the best distro I have used so far (over ten years of trying them all).

the results from lscpi are:
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8385 [K8T800 AGP] Host Bridge (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI bridge [K8T800/K8T890 South]
00:0b.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
00:0b.3 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 2.0 Controller (rev 01)
00:0b.4 FireWire (IEEE 1394): ALi Corporation M5253 P1394 OHCI 1.1 Controller
00:0f.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 80)
00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 ISA bridge [KT600/K8T800/K8T890 South]
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60)
00:13.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AR [Radeon 9600]
01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AR [Radeon 9600] (Secondary)

[Husse]

You have rather unusual hardware - not said to defend Elyssa, just a statement
Given this and your description I think it might be a kernel problem
Can you tell us which kernel Fedora has (uname -r but you know that given 10 years with Linux )
I think it's newer....
2.6.24-19 can be found in mintUpdate if you enable level 4 and 5
Remember that upgrading the kernel can break "anything"
This is to give me a starting point of sorts as your errors does not ring a bell. Most sound problems are with Intel and the HDA6 and forward chips

[phillvs]

I had no idea I had unusual hardware. I am intrigued as to why you say that? But I digress, back to the problem:

I am in LM5 at the moment and as I don't want to reboot at the moment so I had a look at the boot directory of the Fedora partition and found this:
vmlinuz-2.6.25.6-55.fc9.i686

As I said, ten years installing all of these wonderful distros but I can't honestly say that I am more than a novice at the command line. Still if you need me to reboot to run the command you mention then I will do so.

I am happy to update the kernel but not sure what you mean by enable level 4 and level 5. I seem to remember something about booting to a 'level'. Is that what you mean? I haven't thought about this for a few years and can't really remember what they are, or how to enable them.

Very many thanks for your help so far.

[Husse]

Unusual hardware - it was ages since I last bumped into some ALI chip...
The levels - no I did not mean booting into some run level - and Ubuntu abandoned run levels with the version before Edgy (can't remember what it was called)
I meant that you open mintUpdate and in preferences enabled level 4 and 5 which are considered "unsafe" - of course with a new kernel you should have an option to boot with the old one in grub
The Fedora kernel is 2.6.25 a bit newer than Mint's kernel

[phillvs]

Many thanks for your reply.

I did enable level 4 and 5 as you suggested and rebooted. I'm afraid it didn't solve the problem. I have just run a movie through Totem and got the following error message:

"The audio device is busy. Is another application using it?"

To my knowledge nothing else is using the audio - have just rebooted, so its clean. As for the Kernel I have just checked and I am now running on:

2.6.24-19-generic

Is this the Kernel you wanted me to use, it's not as up to date as the Fedora one though?

Phill

[Husse]

Fedora and Ubuntu (and so far we use the Ubuntu kernel right off) evolves "out of sync" so the next time Ubuntu may have a newer kernel than Fedora
And I've seen that message a few times and do some googling on the device is busy because that's where you'll find the solution
I have to go to work shortly so I must leave it for now, but I'll mark it as "Unsolved" and return