antiX-forum

Hey Y'all,

I have to say that AntiX is my new favorite distro for old hardware. Great look and feel, and enough apps to live in. Plus, Debian/Mepis based. Cool.

Anyway, I'm working with an old Inspiron 3500. It has a NeoMagic MagicWave 256 3D soundcard (built onto the motherboard). From the name, seems like it should just Magic Magic Magic work.

I've run the sound configuration utility (alsaconf) which loads nm256 (Neomagic Corporation NM2200 MagicMedia 256AV Audio rev 12). I've tried the other choices as well. It acts like it worked. BTW, same problem in Puppy Linux.

XMMS gives me an error when trying to play files (something like "no audio device configured") and the mixers just crash and can't be used.

I've upgraded the BIOS and turned off quickboot. I'm sort of at a loss. Any ideas? I've been scouring the internet but no dice. Lots of threads trailing off without solution.

Thanks,
glass.dimly

Post output of (in a terminal)
inxi -F

Anticapitalista,

Thanks much for your prompt reply. Here is the output of inxi -F. Let me know if you need any more information. smxi is really cool, I had fun installing and running it.

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$ inxi -F                                                                                                                       
System:    Host lantern Kernel  2.6.22-1-mepis-smp i686 (32 bit) Distro antiX-M7.5
CPU:       Single Core Mobile Pentium II cache 256 KB flags (-) bmips 662.03 clocked at 330.887 MHz
Graphics:  Card Neomagic NM2200 [MagicGraph 256AV] X.Org 1.4.2 Res 1024x768@70.0hz
Audio:     Card Neomagic NM2200 [MagicMedia 256AV Audio]
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.15
Disks:     HDD Total Size: 6.5GB (45.0% used) 1: /dev/sda FUJITSU MHH2064A 6.5GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 4.4G used: 2.7G (65%) ID:/home size: 1.1G used: 55M (6%) ID: swap:/dev/sda2 size: 0.54GB
Info:      Processes 81 Uptime 2:01 Memory 97.1/122.5MB Client Shell inxi 0.9.4

-glass.dimly


If you haven't already done so, try some ideas in these threads.

http://www.nabble.com/tp_smapi-compilat ... 38936.html
http://www.linuxfreunde.de/marl/mobile5 ... le510.html
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux- ... blems.html

So I have tried some of the things listed in the posts you suggested. I've tried all the legacy driver options as one of the posts suggested.

This:

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http://www.nabble.com/tp_smapi-compilation-error.-td21138936.html

was a bit over my head, and I didn't understand what to do.

I followed the instructions found here and compiled the current ALSA module from source and loaded the snd_nm256 module into the kernel:

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http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Module-nm256

But that was unsuccessful. Still returns that it's unable to find soundcard at '0' when I run 'aplay -v file.wav'.

Any ideas?

Oh, and also, how would I enable the Debian Menu in icewm? It seems to be installed. I'm handing this off to a newbie (not that I'm not one).

Thanks much, I really like AntiX.
-glass.dimly

Hi jon_th_id seems to be using the same card and he managed to get ot to work.

antix-m8-latest-version-on-ibm-thinkpad-570-t1364.html

To add the debian menu to fluxbox and icewm

icewm-t696-30.html?hilit=full menu#p6309

I don't think the NM256 soundcard that you have is the same as the CS46xx in my lappy. I thought it was for ages and tried in vain to get the NM256 driver to work but it just didn't. I get a different lspci output to you, mine reports it as a cirrus logic whereas yours reports it as a neomagic.

I thought the NM256 driver came with M8 anyway and you wouldn't have to compile it.
Graphics wise, yes we are using the same cards. There's a few options in xorg.conf (or XF86config) that make things work a bit better. I think you have to set overlaymem to 829440 for good DVD playback, also try setting 'strangelockups' to false.

Here's the relevant bit of my XF86config
Section "Device"
#Option "NoLinear" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "SWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "noMMIO" # [<bool>]
#Option "internDisp" # [<bool>]
#Option "externDisp" # [<bool>]
#Option "LcdCenter" # [<bool>]
#Option "ShadowFB" #
#Option "NoStretch" # [<bool>]
#Option "pciBurst" "True"
#Option "ShowCache" # [<bool>]
#Option "Rotate" # [<str>]
Option "StrangeLockups" "False"
#Option "DisplayHeight480" # [<bool>]
#Option "progLcdModeRegs" # [<bool>]
#Option "progLcdModeStretch" # [<bool>]
#Option "overrideValidateMode" # [<bool>]
#Option "VideoKey" # <i>
Option "OverlayMem" "829440"
#Option "Interlace" # <i>

Identifier "Builtin Default neomagic Device 0"
Driver "neomagic"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

I don't think you actually needto set pciburst to true, I think this might be the default setting.
When using mplayer etc set output device to xv - that seems to work best.

Apologies if you know this all already
Jon

This looks like it may be useful to you. A bit longwinded, but persevere!

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=284405