snd-powermac

[akex stone]

|Hello all.


I've just installed F8 on my old laptop (G4 Ti.) So far so good with the exception of the alsa module for built in sound, called snd-powermac. After some hefty research today, i've discovered there been a few challenges with this module, and i'm asking if there's some sort of resolution. I have everything installed correctly according to several setup guides i found, but i still get 5 secs or so of sound, then everything dies. In addition, when i open Jack, with alsa as the sounddevice, it stops almost immediately with a 'module not found' error message, and a 'jack can't find anything compatible for format' error message.

Some assistance with this would be appreciated. I'm a full time composer, and have a sizable standing rig in the studio, but for writing on the move, the laptop would be ideal.

I got rid of osx entirely from the system, so i'm single boot into only F8.

Alex.

p.s. Good distro. Everything else installed without a hitch, and it runs well on the old laptop. My compliments to the devs who've ported F8 to PPC. It brings new life to older kit.

[carpetfeller]

I had a problem with sound on my G3 iBook. I'm not sure if it's the same as yours but here's how I fixed it:

create a symbolic link to /dev/dsp:

ln -s /dev/dsp /dev/snd/dsp

change the permissions to your new link:

chmod 777 /dev/snd/dsp

open control center->sound & multimedia->sound system->hardware tab, check the box for override device location and in the text box enter: /dev/snd/dsp

probably won't work for you but it might so give it a try.

[majikthise]

Hi,
I was on the Apple support site earlier, getting updates for my own machine (desktop G4) and stumbled upon a firmware update that fixes an issue with sound becoming disconnected. I know yours is a powerbook but it could also apply to many other products.

Just a thought.

Majikthise.

[akex stone]

Thanks for the contributions fellas. I got it sorted out, and now have jack and alsa working fine. (I dumped pulseaudio. That was causing more problems than not. Maybe in the future i'll revisit this.)

The answer was found, with a lot of help from DW and Iva in the Fedora-ppc irc chatroom, in updating the kernel. With the latest development kernel, .25, the sound worked, and normal tweaks and setup option for alsa and jack had me listening to Beethoven once again.

So, if you're struggling with this, we have at least one option for success.

Woohoo.

Alex.

p.s. I'm still considering a full F9 install, and haven't added anything of any priority to the setup just yet, but a few days enjoying the fruits of much labour might be in order first.