Two Lenny problems
in [Debian]
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From: Stephen Powell on 27 Feb 2010 17:10 On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:33:51 -0500 (EST), Cecil Knutson wrote: > I get silence when trying to play a .wav file with aplay. No error > messages, just says "Playing WAVE 'Track1.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little > Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Stereo" Rats. I was hoping you'd get an error message that might give us a clue. > The sound card is, without doubt, older > than 2008. I've had the system for at least two years myself and Dell > support says the system shipped in 2004. OK. > It is no honor to me to have stumped you. And Florian. Another mystery > with respect to Debian. I have been trying to supplant Windows since > getting Debian Potato, but there is some discrepancy with every > installation of Debian I have done that renders it less capable than > Windows. Some really weird ones, too. All I am willing to do right now > is to try another installation on a completely different system. I was going to suggest trying a different sound card on your existing system. But it's your call. I have a couple of Dell systems too. One is a Dell Optiplex GX400 running Squeeze. It has sound built-in to the motherboard. alsamixer reports the card as "Intel 82801BA-ICH2" and the chip as "Analog Devices AD1885". Sound works fine on it. GNOME Startup and Shutdown sounds don't work, but that's a known bug. They finally got rid of the ESD in Squeeze, but that was a major change and disabling startup and shutdown sounds is a workaround for a bug that hasn't been fixed yet. Once started, GNOME system sounds works fine, although it requires some configuration. The other system is a Dell Dimension 4400 with a separate sound card. It runs Lenny. alsamixer reports the card as "SBLive! Value [CT4780]" and the chip as "TriTech TR28602". Sound works perfectly, including GNOME system sounds. > I am not > comfortable with trying Squeeze, thank you. It seems futile after getting > sound out of Ubuntu 9.10, which has a good driver base and a recent > kernel. You know, it could just be that something went wrong with the original installation. Remember, you had hangs in epiphany-browser and iceweasel. I've never seen that before. > Do you foresee any gross problems with transferring the HD from > this system to another system and repeating the installation procedure? (I > do!! I just remembered that the HD in this system is SATA and all my other > systems are PATA.) I guess you answered your own question there. > I'm tired of wiping Windows installations for no good > reason. Unless you don't have enough space on the hard disk for both, you don't need to wipe Windows. ("Wipe Windows". Cute metaphor. :-) ) Most Windows installations I've seen have one big "C" drive which takes up the whole hard disk, leaving no room for installing anything else. But that "C" drive is mostly free space. During installation you can shrink down the size of that partition to make room for Linux. That's what I did on the Dell Dimension 4400. I wish I had wiped Windows now, but I didn't. The Debian installer has support for this. Run the installer in expert mode and choose manual partitioning. Select the existing partition and then select "Resize partition". Not all file systems are supported by the Debian installer for resizing. But I do know that FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS are supported. > I had an older Dell system on which Sarge installed with no > problems whatsoever, and I was soooo pleased. Then the HD died and I > replaced it with another, reinstalled Sarge and could never get another > desktop. From just changing the HD? Give me a break, please. That is strange. It makes me wonder if you made a mistake during installation. But I guess we'll never know. > It is > obvious to me that I am going to have to dig into Debian just as I have > done with Windows and DOS. That is unfortunate because I have gotten to > the point with computers now that I just want them to work, I don't want > to fix them any more. I have been repairing systems for over twenty > years, and the fun is gone. Now it is just frustrating as hell to get new > technology that isn't any more capable, stable nor secure (in my > experience) than the old. Feces!! Many thanks, again. In that case, you might want to try buying a computer with Debian pre-installed. See http://www.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed. This list is probably not exhaustive or up-to-date but will give you a good start. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/514523314.15570471267308284095.JavaMail.root(a)md01.wow.synacor.com
From: Cecil Knutson on 27 Feb 2010 23:20 Stephen, > I was going to suggest trying a different sound card on your existing > system. But it's your call. That is a good idea. I'll look to see what I have. Am I right to assume that the installation will have to be repeated in order to get the sound card recognized and configured? > You know, it could just be that something went wrong with the original > installation. Remember, you had hangs in epiphany-browser and iceweasel. > I've never seen that before. Yeah, but Opera has had delays, but not nearly as long as Epiphany or Iceweasel, so it is hard to tell what the problem may be. And every time I change the "To" from your address to the debian-user address, I get multiple syntax errors from Opera (for that message and every one sent or received afterwards) which I never got before; and I have never succeeded in downloading YouTube videos here that were no problem in Pennsylvania, so it is possible that the internet connection has something to do with it. > Most Windows installations I've seen have one big "C" drive which > takes up the whole hard disk, leaving no room for installing anything > else. It has been years and years since I last had one, big "C" drive for a Windows installation. Mainly due to virus considerations. For about the last ten years or so my usual protocol is to divide the disk into at least three partitions (OS, Swap/Temp, Programs), but usually at least five partitions. I have been able to clear trojan virus problems by deleting the OS partition only (which saves all my personal info and driver files), and the separate Swap/Temp partition eliminates a lot of the fragmentation of the "C" drive. The multiple partitions of Debian is one of the features that first attracted me to the OS. Oh! and multiple partitions makes disk maintenance so much easier. > That is strange. It makes me wonder if you made a mistake during > installation. But I guess we'll never know. I made copious notes for every Debian installation that was done. Even to the point of recording the screen prompts and my responses on a separate laptop. And I followed my notes scrupulously during the re-installation. And it was done more than once, believe me. But each installation failed to give a suitable screen to the X server, even though I gave the same H-Freq, V-Freq, resolution, monitor data, etc. And I tried several edits of the X-server configuration file, even copying from the config file that is created by the X-server test command. > In that case, you might want to try buying a computer with Debian > pre-installed. See http://www.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed. > This list is probably not exhaustive or up-to-date but will give > you a good start. I have looked several times at ready-to-use Debian systems but I have never had money to spare for computers and I still don't. The only reason I ever got into them in the first place is because my brother, as a professional engineer, wanted a 386 machine to run AutoCAD instead of his 8088, so I bought the 8088 from him as a favor. I did pay $20 for a Mac G4 once, but that is it. All the rest have been hand-me-downs or salvaged. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/op.u8tkszapdo2va7(a)dimension8400
From: Cecil Knutson on 28 Feb 2010 02:30 Lisi, Sorry, again. I haven't much experience with the list, so I don't know what courtesies are expected. I hope you have seen that Stephen, Florian, and I were not able to resolve the sound problem in spite of the massive help Stephen gave. I think I will try Stephen's suggestion to swap sound cards and see what difference that makes. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/op.u8ttm4czdo2va7(a)dimension8400
From: Andrei Popescu on 28 Feb 2010 09:20 On Sat,27.Feb.10, 20:16:01, Cecil Knutson wrote: > Stephen, > >I was going to suggest trying a different sound card on your existing > >system. But it's your call. > > That is a good idea. I'll look to see what I have. Am I right to > assume that the installation will have to be repeated in order to > get the sound card recognized and configured? Definitely not! But to keep things simple just remove the other card, plug in the new one and (with a little bit of luck) it should just work. [...] > The multiple partitions of Debian is one of the features that first > attracted me to the OS. Oh! and multiple partitions makes disk > maintenance so much easier. It makes planning more complicated, not something I would recommend to beginners. But keeping /home on a separate partition is (almost) always a good idea. [...] > But each installation failed to give a suitable screen to the X > server, even though I gave the same H-Freq, V-Freq, resolution, > monitor data, etc. And I tried several edits of the X-server > configuration file, even copying from the config file that is > created by the X-server test command. This shouldn't be necessary anymore unless you have a really old monitor. Regards, Andrei -- Offtopic discussions among Debian users and developers: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic
From: Stephen Powell on 1 Mar 2010 11:10
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:16:01 -0500 (EST), Cecil Knutson wrote: > Stephen Powell wrote: >> I was going to suggest trying a different sound card on your existing >> system. But it's your call. > > That is a good idea. I'll look to see what I have. Am I right to assume > that the installation will have to be repeated in order to get the sound > card recognized and configured? Probably not. Do a clean shutdown and power-off, remove the "old" sound card, insert the "new" sound card, power-on, boot Lenny, login as root, then run dpkg-reconfigure -plow alsa-base alsa-utils Then shutdown and reboot. That should do it. You might not even have to run dpkg-reconfigure, but run it anyway just for good measure. One thing you don't want to do is to insert a sound card that uses the same driver as the sound chip on the motherboard. The driver is still blacklisted. > Stephen Powell wrote: >> You know, it could just be that something went wrong with the original >> installation. Remember, you had hangs in epiphany-browser and iceweasel. >> I've never seen that before. > > Yeah, but Opera has had delays, but not nearly as long as Epiphany or > Iceweasel, so it is hard to tell what the problem may be. And every time > I change the "To" from your address to the debian-user address, I get > multiple syntax errors from Opera (for that message and every one sent or > received afterwards) which I never got before; and I have never succeeded > in downloading YouTube videos here that were no problem in Pennsylvania, > so it is possible that the internet connection has something to do with it. Just out of curiosity, where is "here". In other words, where are you physically located? And what type of internet connectivity do you have? async dial-up? cable modem? DSL? > Stephen Powell wrote: >> Most Windows installations I've seen have one big "C" drive which >> takes up the whole hard disk, leaving no room for installing anything >> else. > > It has been years and years since I last had one, big "C" drive for a > Windows installation. Mainly due to virus considerations. For about the > last ten years or so my usual protocol is to divide the disk into at least > three partitions (OS, Swap/Temp, Programs), but usually at least five > partitions. I have been able to clear trojan virus problems by deleting > the OS partition only (which saves all my personal info and driver files), > and the separate Swap/Temp partition eliminates a lot of the fragmentation > of the "C" drive. The multiple partitions of Debian is one of the > features that first attracted me to the OS. Oh! and multiple partitions > makes disk maintenance so much easier. Well, whether it is one partition or multiple partitions, the point is that the Debian installer has the ability to shrink down and move existing partitions, making room to install Linux without wiping Windows. Of course, I should issue the standard disclaimer that you should back up your hard drive, just in case. A software bug or a power failure during the shrink or move operation could trash the partition. But the worst case scenario is no worse than if you had wiped Windows and started all over. I'm pretty sure that you are still limited to a maximum of four partitions (four primary or three primary and one extended). But the extended partition can have multiple logical drives, and you can install pieces of Linux in both primary partitions and logical drives. > Stephen Powell wrote: >> In that case, you might want to try buying a computer with Debian >> pre-installed. See http://www.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed. >> This list is probably not exhaustive or up-to-date but will give >> you a good start. > > I have looked several times at ready-to-use Debian systems but I have > never had money to spare for computers and I still don't. The only reason > I ever got into them in the first place is because my brother, as a > professional engineer, wanted a 386 machine to run AutoCAD instead of his > 8088, so I bought the 8088 from him as a favor. I did pay $20 for a Mac > G4 once, but that is it. All the rest have been hand-me-downs or salvaged. I hear you. I have one hand-me-down machine and several bought used. None are new. None of my monitors are new either. They all all throw-aways or give-aways. (All are CRTs, none are LCDs.) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1727635143.15861061267459549386.JavaMail.root(a)md01.wow.synacor.com |