# Configuring sound.



## grateful (Sep 12, 2011)

Hello, after a fresh install of FreeBSD (plus nvidia-driver and Gnome2), I seem to have the problem that there is no sound. I read this guide: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/sound-setup.html several times, but still I have no idea what to do. I use the onboard sound card of my ASUS P5Q Deluxe (AD2000B). On Linux, sound mostly worked out of the box, except for ArchLinux, which had no ALSA installed per default. So I tried installing ALSA on FreeBSD but pkg_add doesn't find it and there's no audio/alsa directory in the ports.

What can I do?

The Gnome Volume Control prints:

The volume control did not find any elements and/or devices to control. This means either that you don't have the right GStreamer plugins installed, or that you don't have a sound card configured.

..., when I try to play a mp3 file using VLC Media Player.


```
styx# uname -a
FreeBSD styx 8.2-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #0: Thu Feb 17 02:41:51 UTC 2011 root@mason.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
```


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## Oxyd (Sep 12, 2011)

ALSA stands for Advanced _Linux_ Sound Architecture. On FreeBSD, you use the standard OSS interface.

The handbook explains how to set up a sound card. Have you tried following these instructions?


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## fonz (Sep 12, 2011)

grateful said:
			
		

> What can I do?


You can look at the output of dmesg(8) and see if a sound card has been detected. If so, it will also tell you which driver (kernel module) you need to load.

Hope this helps,

Fonz


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## akil (Sep 12, 2011)

Hi

If the "dmesg" doesn't output what we expect, you may try accordingly:
`# lspci`

I would assume that you haven't yet installed pciutils. Please attach output from above command. I think you don't have loaded kernel sound module. Please try from root loading below modules, and take a look on first console for some output if the device is configured properly.
`# kldload snd_hda`
`# kldload snd_ich`

I guess, that modules are compiled into the kernel by default, but I haven't check that. Good point is to recompile kernel and commenting snd_* modules, so it will be possible to load them by hand, because i noticed that only module configure my sound card properly.

```
#device snd_es137x
#device snd_hda
#device snd_ich
#device snd_uaudio
#device snd_via8233
```

And after installing new kernel (you should consider rebooting machine before loading modules), you may try to load by hand "snd_hda or snd_ich" which i hope may help in your case. If it help, you can add proper module to file
/boot/loader.conf


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## wblock@ (Sep 12, 2011)

akil said:
			
		

> Hi
> 
> If the "dmesg" doesn't output what we expect, you may try accordingly:
> `# lspci`



pciconf(8) is FreeBSD's version of that.  Usually used with at least -lv options.


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