Linux-compatible Laptop add-on sound cards?
For the last few years I've been seeing these add-on sound cards for laptops which promise better sound than the standard laptop sound chipsets. And on the same lines as my recent thread on printers, I know of at least one person who still uses Windows98 on his ancient laptop (PII) because Linux doesn't have drivers for the sound hardware on his laptop. I've popped out his hard drive, dropped in another one, and installed Ubuntu 8.04, and while he's impressed, the "no sound" problem is an upgrade-killer. Does anyone know if there is an add-on sound system for laptops, for which there are Linux drivers? While a laptop upgrade may sound better, even the used laptops with PIII CPUs are over $400, while the add-on sound cards generally are under $50, making the Linux switch "with sound" much more attractive with just the add-on sound to an existing perfectly functional laptop. Even the folks who have Linux-supported sound on their laptops would benefit from these cards (if Linux drivers exist for them), which generally have features on them not found on most laptops, such as surround-sound features.
What's the chipset? You might want to dig a bit deeper, it's very possible that the chipset is supported, but that auto-detection fails. Back then a lot of those chipsets were very non-standard and you had to manually enter in IRQs and so forth. Jeffrey. On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 10:25 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
For the last few years I've been seeing these add-on sound cards for laptops which promise better sound than the standard laptop sound chipsets. And on the same lines as my recent thread on printers, I know of at least one person who still uses Windows98 on his ancient laptop (PII) because Linux doesn't have drivers for the sound hardware on his laptop. I've popped out his hard drive, dropped in another one, and installed Ubuntu 8.04, and while he's impressed, the "no sound" problem is an upgrade-killer.
Does anyone know if there is an add-on sound system for laptops, for which there are Linux drivers? While a laptop upgrade may sound better, even the used laptops with PIII CPUs are over $400, while the add-on sound cards generally are under $50, making the Linux switch "with sound" much more attractive with just the add-on sound to an existing perfectly functional laptop.
Even the folks who have Linux-supported sound on their laptops would benefit from these cards (if Linux drivers exist for them), which generally have features on them not found on most laptops, such as surround-sound features.
_______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
-- "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
What's the chipset? You might want to dig a bit deeper, it's very possible that the chipset is supported, but that auto-detection fails. Back then a lot of those chipsets were very non-standard and you had to manually enter in IRQs and so forth.
Jeffrey.
I've had a few older systems that defaulted to muted sound, or defaulted to sending the output to some crazy non-exsistant output that didn't exist on the card. They generally just required a quick flip of bits somewhere to get on track. Of course checking dmesg output and alsaconf, etc. will tell you more of what is going on. Jon.
--- On Mon, 7/28/08, Jon Pruente <jdpruente@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
What's the chipset? You might want to dig a bit deeper, it's very possible that the chipset is supported, but that auto-detection fails. Back then a lot of those chipsets were very non-standard and you had to manually enter in IRQs and so forth.
I've had a few older systems that defaulted to muted sound, or defaulted to sending the output to some crazy non-exsistant output that didn't exist on the card. They generally just required a quick flip of bits somewhere to get on track. Of course checking dmesg output and alsaconf, etc. will tell you more of what is going on.
Well I guess a litle bit of information goes a long way. I had been thinking that the laptop had some weird very proprietary ESS Audiodrive chipset, ESS0006, which is what popped up in the Ubuntu Device Manager. Recently I discovered that his laptop actually uses the ESS1869 chipset, which is supported by the snd-es18xx module. Turns out one line ("snd-es18xx") added to /etc/modules made his sound work in Ubuntu Linux. Funny thing was that he didn't know he had a built-in microphone on his laptop until Ubuntu rebooted and the speakers started echoing everything we said... Turns out that Ubuntu likes to disable some systems' sound by default, though I've never found the criteria they use to determine which systems shouldn't have sound and which get get sound. This link describes the problem and how to fix it, if any of you run into someone having the same problem and can't fix it personally. Linux - Installing Ubuntu - Enabling your sound card... http://www.aotk50.dsl.pipex.com/install-ubuntu-sb16/install-ubuntu-sb16.htm TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/2kp9so Anyway, now that his sound works I think I've hooked another Linux convert. WINE already ran the few bits of Windows software he has to run.
On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
Well I guess a litle bit of information goes a long way. I had been thinking that the laptop had some weird very proprietary ESS Audiodrive chipset, ESS0006, which is what popped up in the Ubuntu Device Manager.
Recently I discovered that his laptop actually uses the ESS1869 chipset, which is supported by the snd-es18xx module. Turns out one line ("snd-es18xx") added to /etc/modules made his sound work in Ubuntu Linux. Funny thing was that he didn't know he had a built-in microphone on his laptop until Ubuntu rebooted and the speakers started echoing everything we said...
Turns out that Ubuntu likes to disable some systems' sound by default, though I've never found the criteria they use to determine which systems shouldn't have sound and which get get sound. This link describes the problem and how to fix it, if any of you run into someone having the same problem and can't fix it personally.
Linux - Installing Ubuntu - Enabling your sound card...
http://www.aotk50.dsl.pipex.com/install-ubuntu-sb16/install-ubuntu-sb16.htm
TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/2kp9so
Anyway, now that his sound works I think I've hooked another Linux convert. WINE already ran the few bits of Windows software he has to run.
_______________________________________________
Your report has reopened a question of mine. is there a consistent application of some method for collating data on "odd ducks". To feed back into the config databases. Oren Beck 816.729.3645
Sorry, I spoke too soon on this one. While the microphone plays through to the speakers just fine, when audio or video files are played there is nothing but static, though it is bursts of static indicating something is trying to render the digital media into analog sound. The microphone also stays on all the time and has to be manually switched off. We've tried different players (the built-in media player, VLC, the music player) and different sound formats (wav, mp3, ogg, avi (XviD/MP3 and XviD/Ogg), mpeg1, etc.) and none of them produce anything other than bursts of static. --- On Sun, 8/3/08, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
Well I guess a litle bit of information goes a long way. I had been thinking that the laptop had some weird very proprietary ESS Audiodrive chipset, ESS0006, which is what popped up in the Ubuntu Device Manager.
Recently I discovered that his laptop actually uses the ESS1869 chipset, which is supported by the snd-es18xx module. Turns out one line ("snd-es18xx") added to /etc/modules made his sound work in Ubuntu Linux. Funny thing was that he didn't know he had a built-in microphone on his laptop until Ubuntu rebooted and the speakers started echoing everything we said...
Turns out that Ubuntu likes to disable some systems' sound by default, though I've never found the criteria they use to determine which systems shouldn't have sound and which get get sound. This link describes the problem and how to fix it, if any of you run into someone having the same problem and can't fix it personally.
Linux - Installing Ubuntu - Enabling your sound card... http://www.aotk50.dsl.pipex.com/install-ubuntu-sb16/install-ubuntu-sb16.htm
TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/2kp9so
Anyway, now that his sound works I think I've hooked another Linux convert. WINE already ran the few bits of Windows software he has to run.
Have you checked the input/output levels using your mixer of choice? Could be pre-amp overload causing the static sound. Just a thought. Leo Mauler wrote:
Sorry, I spoke too soon on this one. While the microphone plays through to the speakers just fine, when audio or video files are played there is nothing but static, though it is bursts of static indicating something is trying to render the digital media into analog sound. The microphone also stays on all the time and has to be manually switched off.
We've tried different players (the built-in media player, VLC, the music player) and different sound formats (wav, mp3, ogg, avi (XviD/MP3 and XviD/Ogg), mpeg1, etc.) and none of them produce anything other than bursts of static.
--- On Sun, 8/3/08, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
Well I guess a litle bit of information goes a long way. I had been thinking that the laptop had some weird very proprietary ESS Audiodrive chipset, ESS0006, which is what popped up in the Ubuntu Device Manager.
Recently I discovered that his laptop actually uses the ESS1869 chipset, which is supported by the snd-es18xx module. Turns out one line ("snd-es18xx") added to /etc/modules made his sound work in Ubuntu Linux. Funny thing was that he didn't know he had a built-in microphone on his laptop until Ubuntu rebooted and the speakers started echoing everything we said...
Turns out that Ubuntu likes to disable some systems' sound by default, though I've never found the criteria they use to determine which systems shouldn't have sound and which get get sound. This link describes the problem and how to fix it, if any of you run into someone having the same problem and can't fix it personally.
Linux - Installing Ubuntu - Enabling your sound card... http://www.aotk50.dsl.pipex.com/install-ubuntu-sb16/install-ubuntu-sb16.htm
TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/2kp9so
Anyway, now that his sound works I think I've hooked another Linux convert. WINE already ran the few bits of Windows software he has to run.
_______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
-- Point b Computer Services <http://2xl.homelinux.com> Ty Unes - Point b Computer Services LLC. Overland Park, Kansas - 913.626.9815 email: riverty@gmail.com <mailto:riverty@gmail.com> www: 2xl.homelinux.com <http://2xl.homelinux.com>
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com>wrote:
What's the chipset? You might want to dig a bit deeper, it's very possible that the chipset is supported, but that auto-detection fails. Back then a lot of those chipsets were very non-standard and you had to manually enter in IRQs and so forth.
I once had a sound card that wouldn't work right in Linux unless I booted to Win98 first, let it initialize the hardware, then WARM-boot the PC to Linux, where the driver was able to work with it fine. It may well have been an auto-detection/Plug-n-Pray issue.
participants (6)
-
Jeffrey Watts -
Jon Pruente -
Leo Mauler -
Monty J. Harder -
Oren Beck -
Ty Unes