Monday, November 21, 2011

Say what one more fucking time!*


So I recently inherited a Soundblaster audio card from a friend. In general I maintain that average people just cant hear the difference in good and bad sound, but I decided to install it in any event, just cause I can.

Or so I thought.

Enter the hell that is linux support for audio drivers. Fuck all worked.

I eventually (20 forum trawls later) settled on trying to install OSS, which proceeded to break what sound I had before I started.

So, out with the Soundblaster and remove what I could of the changes. Still no sound. My Logitect cam which I use for skype (+ internal mic) were not on the available hardware lists even.

My startup drivers no longer loaded my on-board sound even. An entry for  snd-hda-intel eventually fixed than, but still no cam-sound.

So I left it for a few days...

This morning, wanting to skype again, I looked around and found a damn blacklist file installed by OSS, in /etc/modprobe.d.

I checked and oss4-base was still installed, I had missed it somehow. So I removed it and removed it's modprobe files and that storted everything out.


Afterthought


I've been pondering a better setup for my PC. I try to play a few games like Eve and LOTRO when time allows. For that I have an ancient XP boot on a slow second HDD that I change to.


I think a much better setup will be a new fast HDD, installed with Windows (whatever is latest, 7, 8 ?). Then install ubuntu on a virtual box inside that. I'ts not like I need ubuntu for anything heavy, I just need it "in front" when I code, so I can just switch into the VB and work like that.


This way I wont have to reboot (well other that for windows' own moronic reasons, which I'm told is few and far between lately), and my work "machine" can be transferred if ever I upgrade windows (as opposed to the nervous "did I just fuck up my partition table" moments otherwise)

*I believe this is a Samuel Jackson line form a movie. I don't really care, I just needed an offensive title.

1 comment:

  1. Actually, I think you skipped the blog title entirely and just put a title in the body :P

    My reader reports "Untitled". And your title is not a link.

    Anyway, sorry to hear about the troubles. I really thought that Ubuntu would by now be able to install a card that was released in 2003/4.

    But I fully support your plan. My Ubuntu runs in a VM. Absolutely no need to dedicate a whole partition to it.

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