Totem can't connect to sound "server"

Hmm - it appears to me that there are still problems with the MagicMedia AV audio. Take a look at this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=209882 and consider filing a bug. IMHO - Things like that should work from the outset.

Hi, Danny

Thanks very much for the reply. I have reported this as a bug a while back.

I am just a user and I have tried many different things. Linux (Ubuntu) is proving to be rather complicated to make it run if it doesn't run "out of the box".

It is almost impossible to get any sequence of instructions that make any sense for users at all. Eveybody seems to talk a jargon that, I am sure, makes a lot of sense for the community, but makes little sense for people like me. The only way I can follow instructions for typing onto the Terminal is if they are clear and don't assume anything is obvious or trivial.

I really want to make this Ubuntu work, so I'll keep trying, but I already gave up a couple of times. I will have a look at the Community Ubuntu Doc again to see if there is anything new there.

Thanks!

Fern

----- Original Message ----
From: DannyStaple <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Saturday, October 7, 2006 5:42:13 AM
Subject: [Support #1999]: Re: Totem can't connect to sound "server"

Support request #1999 on Ubuntu changed:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+ticket/1999

Comment:
Hmm - it appears to me that there are still problems with the MagicMedia AV audio. Take a look at this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=209882 and consider filing a bug. IMHO - Things like that should work from the outset.

Hi, Danny

Went down a long and bumpy road, reading and following the troubleshooting (as many times before), ended up at the ALSA site, downloading zillions of things (driver packages, utils, libs), unzipping, trying to run command lines I don't understand, even trying the scripts that don't work. Everything gave errors. In the end, same story: lspci|grep audio returns my sound hardware, modprobe snd-nm256 does not return an error, but aplay -l returns "no soundcards found". Of course Totem doesn't work.

I reported the bug to ALSA as well.

Thanks

Fern

That is probably as far as you can go without diving into ALSA and the driver bits themselves I am afraid. Sorry to hear it has not worked out so well. With these things, it is sometimes handy to keep a log of what you did, and what the results of each step were, and post them somewhere, just so somebody bashing their head on the problem knows what has been done before and does not repeat the same steps, and hopefully lends a voice of "me too" to the bug report, bumping its priority.

Did you file a bug on launchpad as well as alsa? If so, the best way forward is to link it to this support request.

Cheers,
Danny

Hi, Danny

I did "report" the bug on both places. Even though I am not a current geek, I used to be a geek when I did tech support for Burroughs, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. But these days I have a few expectations, and when I installed Ubuntu on my desk top PC, it worked first time, sound and all. That indicates to me that it is possible for Ubuntu to find the hardware and make it work. So, I expected it to work here in this laptop

In my quest to find a sotlution I came across so many "me, too s" that it seems there must be something fundamentally missing with the Neomagic NM256 driver. If the nice people who wrote the drivers (the drivers are there) can't make this one work, I am not going to be the one to find a solution.

So, I gave up. If there is a new Ubuntu version out in the future, or if one of the semi-automatic updates fixes the problem, I'll be happy. I want to load Ubuntu and it just... sings.

I am not disappointed, as I expected it to be somwhat like this. In fact, I am positively surprised to see it work so well, come so complete, and all we need now it for some Microsoft-specific programmed to be migrated, namely my hobby, Flight Simulator.

I want to thank you very much for your help, and say that I am impressed with the Linux community. Do I think it is ready for the corporate or institution environment? Not yet. But it is probably going to be.

Thanks, indeed, Danny

Fern

----- Original Message ----
From: DannyStaple <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Sunday, October 8, 2006 3:13:35 PM
Subject: [Support #1999]: Re: [Support #1999]: Re: Totem can't connect to sound "server"

Support request #1999 on Ubuntu changed:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+ticket/1999

Comment:
That is probably as far as you can go without diving into ALSA and the driver bits themselves I am afraid. Sorry to hear it has not worked out so well. With these things, it is sometimes handy to keep a log of what you did, and what the results of each step were, and post them somewhere, just so somebody bashing their head on the problem knows what has been done before and does not repeat the same steps, and hopefully lends a voice of "me too" to the bug report, bumping its priority.

Did you file a bug on launchpad as well as alsa? If so, the best way forward is to link it to this support request.

Cheers,
Danny

Fern,

I understand your frustration. The reluctance of some hardware manufacturers to provide "working" drivers or bother even cooperating with questions asked by driver developers for anyone but Redmond corporations can seriously hamper efforts to make things "just work" in anything but Redmond software. Some companies (eg NVidia and HP) do a great job, and others are very unhelpful.

Can you do me a favour, and use the "+Link Existing Bug" link at the top of this page (the web view of the support request) to link the launchpad bug to this please? It will add weight to the bug report.

Danny

Hi, Danny

Well, I should say that I am not really frustrated. I am too old to get frustrated with things like this, although I am opinionated and that gets me going once in a while.

I do believe that Ubuntu is an amazing product not despite but because it is owned by no one in particular and yet is something that has worked "out of the box" in at least 4 systems that I tried personally.

The fact that this Neomagic sound hardware is giving me trouble (and many others with the same hardware) is much more unfortunate than frustrating. The manufacturers may not even be facilitating the release of the hardware parameters, the same way Digital used to do (I worked for Digital when they used to sue everyone who tried to make anything plug-compatible with their stuff), and the nice fellows out there are trying very hard to figure out how Neomagic - and other sound hardware - works.

So that I don't go to the wrong page and don't do the correct thing, give me the URL of the page where I am supposed to go and I'll enter a bug report.

Thank you, Danny, very very much.

I am using Ubuntu and this pathetic laptop now for most of my on-line stuff, just for the sake of using it. About a year ago I was going on an international trip and I wanted a laptop, which I didn't have. I send around an e-mail message to my friends asking for a used, cheap one. A friend who worked at Unisys at the time told me they were getting rid of a bunch of laptops, and sent me a list. Three had 20GB disks, so I bought all three of them, 30 dollars each. I bought Windows XP for two of them, and the third one had Win98 running.

When I heard Leo Laporte (Call For Help on TechTV) talking about Ubuntu, I went to the site, downloaded the CD and the loadable versions, tried, and was amazed. Installed, so far, on 3 PCs, all worked immediately, with only a very short weeping session on configuring Evolution mail to suit my provider's preferences. The only difficulty was the security formats.

This is an incredibly functional package, with a world-class "office" package, a graphics programme that seems to beat the harper out of Paint, and even the instant message Gaim connects to MSN without a snag. So, here I have a 30-dollar laptop running a very nice Ubuntu, and complaining that the sound doesn't work...

Thanks, Danny. Waiting for the URL.

Fern

----- Original Message ----
From: DannyStaple <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Monday, October 9, 2006 4:11:13 PM
Subject: [Support #1999]: Re: [Support #1999]: Re: [Support #1999]: Re: Totem can't connect to sound "server"

Support request #1999 on Ubuntu changed:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+ticket/1999

Comment:
Fern,

I understand your frustration. The reluctance of some hardware manufacturers to provide "working" drivers or bother even cooperating with questions asked by driver developers for anyone but Redmond corporations can seriously hamper efforts to make things "just work" in anything but Redmond software. Some companies (eg NVidia and HP) do a great job, and others are very unhelpful.

Can you do me a favour, and use the "+Link Existing Bug" link at the top of this page (the web view of the support request) to link the launchpad bug to this please? It will add weight to the bug report.

Danny

Hi Fern,

Thanks for your response, it clarifies where you are approaching this from.

To Link this to an existing bug, follow the "Support Request Changed" link in the email notification which will take you to launchpad (where support requests are maintained). Then at the top left of the page, you will see a link "+Link Existing Bug". You can then feed the next form your bug report number, and it will link it with your support request.

Cheers,
Danny

Done, Danny

I'll check once in a while to see whether anything happened.

Thanks a lot for your attention.

Fern

----- Original Message ----
From: DannyStaple <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 5:39:00 PM
Subject: [Support #1999]: Re: [Support #1999]: Re: [Support #1999]: Re: [Support #1999]: Re: Totem can't connect to sound "server"

Support request #1999 on Ubuntu changed:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+ticket/1999

Comment:
Hi Fern,

Thanks for your response, it clarifies where you are approaching this from.

To Link this to an existing bug, follow the "Support Request Changed" link in the email notification which will take you to launchpad (where support requests are maintained). Then at the top left of the page, you will see a link "+Link Existing Bug". You can then feed the next form your bug report number, and it will link it with your support request.

Cheers,
Danny

Fern,

I have created a bug report linked to this. You may want to head over to http://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/65247 to add the output of the command "lspci" on your system. If we can get info to the bug stampers in the community, maybe we can get it sorted.

Danny

Hi, Danny

Well, I am using Ubuntu as much as I can. I have changed to Ubuntu for pretty much all my on-line activity. It is installed in this old HP laptop, whose resources buckled under the wait of Windows, but that hums quite well with Ubuntu.

I also managed to make it see my shared folders in my Windows systems around the house (I have a couple of those) in my home net, so I can move files back and forth quite easily now.

I will try to do the printer-sharing business today. If that works, I'd say Ubuntu is doing well here in this household.

I am writing everything I do, step by step, so I can refer to it if I need to re-install, which I had to, yesterday.

It wasn't a bug, it was just what, I think, is a limitation. For the home networking I wanted to change the name of the computer. Looked in the net for the recipe, found it, changed the name, and my "initial account" lost all its priviledges. Looked some more and got really confused by the "root account", all the "sudo" stuff, and the security reasoning behind it. Admin is admin, your have priviledges, you should be able to keep them. But I leaned that lesson, and I can live with the limitation.

Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I am sort-of "advocating" the use of Ubuntu in lesser, older PCs and laptops, and one of my friends is already running it. I don't believe that Linux is a replacemente for Windows just yet, but it has its place and usefulness and, hate to admit it, I am starting to like it.

Have a great day, and thanks.

Fern

----- Original Message ----
From: DannyStaple <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 3:26:50 AM
Subject: [Support #1999]: Re: [Support #1999]: Re: [Support #1999]: Re: [Support #1999]: Re: [Support #1999]: Re: Totem can't connect to sound "server"

Support request #1999 on Ubuntu changed:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+ticket/1999

Comment:
Fern,

I have created a bug report linked to this. You may want to head over to http://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/65247 to add the output of the command "lspci" on your system. If we can get info to the bug stampers in the community, maybe we can get it sorted.

Danny