Soundchip Maestro 2e (rev 10)

Support knowledgebase (findeisen_maestro2e)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Version 6.4
This article refers to an older version of SuSE Linux. Therefore some of the informations given in this article may be outdated or the article may contain stale links.

Symptom:

You are using a Maestro 2E sound chip, which has been recognized and configured correctly by YaST2. Nevertheless sound output isn't working. Also a configuration with alsaconf does not lead to success.

Cause:

There is a variant of this sound chip (revision 10) which can't be run by using the ALSA modules. You can identify this type on the basis of the output of lspci -v, e.g.: 
00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1978 Maestro 2E (rev 10)
Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd: Unknown device 3240
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 5 I/O ports at 1400
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2
This soundchip is e.g. used at the Terratec DMX and often in Laptops.

Solution:

Make use of kernel module maestro.
  1. Log in as super user `root'
  2. Unload all ALSA modules with the command: 
           rcalsasound stop
  3. Uninstall ALSA with YaST1 (package `alsa' series `snd')
  4. Load file /etc/modules.conf with an editor of your choice
  5. Search for the ALSA section at the end of that file: 
    # ALSA section {$#@begin@#$} [don't remove or move this line] vvvvv  
#
# ALSA native device support, generated by YaST2
#
alias char-major-116 snd
options snd snd_major=116 snd_cards_limit=1
alias snd-card-0 snd-card-es1968
options snd-card-es1968 snd_index=0 snd_id=card1
#
# OSS/Free emulation
#
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
#
# ALSA section {$#@_end_@#$} [don't remove or move this line] ^^^^^
  6. Delete the complete section
  7. Search for the following lines (ca. from line 53): 
    alias char-major-14 off
alias sound off
alias midi off
    and modify it as given below: 
    alias char-major-14 maestro
# alias sound off   
# alias midi off
  8. Save these changes
  9. Load the kernel module with the command: 
           modprobe maestro
  10. Test sound output with the appropriate programs
Hint: Neither the device /dev/sndstat, nor direct output to /dev/radio (e.g. with cat) is supported by this kernel module. So given hints in the manual concerning this are not usable.
Keywords: SOUND, ALSA, YAST2, MAESTRO
SDB-findeisen_maestro2e, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 09. Nov 2000
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 10. Nov 2000 by swiegra (sdb_gen 1.40.0)