Alsa/Thinkpad/No such dsp device?

[warlord at MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)]

Duane Morin <dmorin at lear.morinfamily.com> writes:

> Apparently getting sound working on a Thinkpad 600E is something
> of a problem, if my googling is any indication.  Lots of 
> people experiencing problems, lots of different solutions.
> Here's where I'm at.  Alsa 0.9.3 installed, alsaconf
> claims to find cs4236 card and installs module.  alsasound
> seems to work correctly and I can bring up the mixer.
> 
> But, despite /dev/dsp existing, any attempt to access it
> (even something as simple as cat > /dev/dsp just to test)
> says "No such device."  I've tried it as root, same
> problem (doesnt seem like a permissions thing).  

You've tried running aumix?

> Perhaps of note -- when I look in /proc/asound, EVERYTHING
> except for dev is 0 length.  Check it out (sorry for the long
> cut n paste):

You clearly do not understand /proc...  The 0 length is completely
reasonable...

> ./dev:
> total 0
> crw-rw-rw-    1 root     root     116,   0 May 10 09:46 controlC0
> crw-rw-rw-    1 root     root     116,  24 May 10 09:46 pcmC0D0c
> crw-rw-rw-    1 root     root     116,  16 May 10 09:46 pcmC0D0p
> crw-rw-rw-    1 root     root     116,  33 May 10 09:46 timer


These are not lengths; these are device numbers.  116,0; 116,24;
116,16; 116,33 Perfectly normal for a character device (see that 'c'
at the beginning of the line??)

> That certainly can't be good, can it?  What would cause this?

No, this is perfectly normal.

> I've done make install from alsa, run ./snddevices, all
> that stuff.  And dev has stuff in it.  Why is everything
> else 0?

Because it's in /proc; it's supposed to be that way.

> Just for completeness, here's some relevant /dev/* listings:
> 
> [root at localhost asound]#  cd /dev
> [root at localhost dev]# ls -l dsp*
> lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            9 May 10 09:12 dsp -> /dev/dsp0
> crw-rw----    1 root     audio     14,   3 May 10 09:12 dsp0
> 
> 
> Any suggestions?  

Have you tried running aumix?

> Duane

I had a TP600 and sound worked fine right away.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available