[SOLVED] cant capture with: ESS Technology ES1988 Allegro-1

[jimonade]

NOTE: i originally posted this in the multimedia forum

running a gateway laptop (P3 750mHz) took gentoo really well, but im having some capture issues with the sound card.

lspci tells me...

Code: Select all

0000:02:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1988 Allegro-1 (rev 12)
        Subsystem: Gateway 2000: Unknown device 9500
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 48, IRQ 5
        I/O ports at 4000 [size=256]
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

im using alsa in the kernel as modules and can play audio just fine. i dont use esd or arts. i have not setup dmix yet.

when i try to record audio using gnome-sound-recorder i get an error: Could not get/set settings from/on resource. and gnome-sound-recorder force-quits. i get the same result when doing: aoss gnome-sound-recorder.

when i open audacity (great app!) i get a common error: There was an error initializing the audio i/o layer. You will not be able to play or record audio. Error: Host Error. however when i use aoss audacity the app opens without error, but upon recording the time indicator sort of glitches and never leaves the 0 mark. at this point audacity must be force-quit.

the problem goes beyond audacity however, because gnome-audio-recorder also fails. to be sure i tried some suggestions on the audacity-wiki (http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.pl?LinuxIssues)

Error Opening Sound Device

* If you get an error like this "Error Initializing Audio: There was an error initializing the audio i/o layer. You will not be able to play or record audio. Error: Host error." then audacity cannot access your sound card. Audacity cannot use the audio i/o layer when it is in use by another application. If you are using Gnome, KDE or another window manager, be sure to disable the system sounds before starting Audacity.

o If this still happens when nothing else is using audacity then you may have a sample rate selected that your card does not support. You can alter this by changing the Project Rate at the bottom left of the screen.

o Another possibility is that somehow, the link to /dev/dsp, or its permissions, were changed without your knowledge by an unknown process. What you should do (as root) is:

$ rm /dev/dsp;ln -s /dev/dsp0 /dev/dsp #also try /dev/dsp1,2,etc.
$ chmod 666 /dev/dsp0
$ chmod 666 /dev/dsp

If you are using udev in the 2.6 kernel then you may need to alter /etc/udev/rules.d/*.rules to set the correct permisions up permanently.

i tried playing with the /dev/dsp symlinks but no luck, i have device nodes for dsp1 dsp2 dsp3. my udev rules look fine, they are still default.

lets look at gstreamer-properties's behavior.

* testing ALSA output = ok! (i hear a tone)
* testing OSS output = Failed to construct test pipeline for 'OSS - Open Sound System'
* testing ALSA input = Failed to construct test pipeline for 'ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture'
* testing OSS input = Failed to construct test pipeline for 'OSS - Open Sound System'

any suggestions?

-j

EDIT: i didnt have oss compatibility in my kernel! of course everything works now!