Sound Card on IBM A21m

This webpage is hosted by JMD Diplomatic Travel & Tours
For discounted airfare quotes, submit this form.

Configuring Audio System on OpenLinux / IBM A21m
Using ALSA Project Sound Card Drivers

Introduction

The installed sound card on my IBM A21m ThinkPad is Multimedia audio controller : Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] (rev 01). This card is not supported by the current Linux kernel. This issue was resolved by downloading, compiling, and installing version 0.5.10 of the ALSA project sound card drivers. The specific module which supported the installed sound card was snd-card-cs461x.

Instructions

Download and install older versions of ALSA libs, utils and drivers (in that order). This step was required because compilation of latest lib source code complained that I install alsa-lib-0.3.0pre5+ first!
You can download ALSA Version 0.5.8 from here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/caldera/contrib/RPMS/libc6/alsa-utils-0.5.8-1_2.2.14.i386.rpm
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/caldera/contrib/RPMS/libc6/alsa-lib-0.5.8-1_2.2.14.i386.rpm
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/caldera/contrib/RPMS/libc6/alsa-driver-0.5.8a-1_2.2.14.i386.rpm
Install these packages as follows using user root:
```
# rpm -ivh rpmfilename
```
Download the latest source code of ALSA libs, utils and drivers (in that order) in $(HOME)/alsa and then configure, make and install.
You can download ALSA Version 0.5.10 from here:
ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/lib/alsa-lib-0.5.10.tar.bz2
ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/utils/alsa-utils-0.5.10.tar.bz2
ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver/alsa-driver-0.5.10a.tar.bz2
Unzip the .bz2 files using bzip2 as follows:
```
$ bzip2 -d filename
```
Untar the .tar files using tar as follows:
```
$ tar xvf filename
```
cd to the directories containing libs, utils and drivers and run
```
$ ./configure
$ make
# make install (as user root)
```
Note: Compilation of utils requires following additional steps:
1. Install the following RPM for lex:
  - ?? (I copied this from another machine)
2. Install the following RPMs for ncurses:
  - ncurses-4.2-18.i386.rpm
  - ncurses-devel-4.2-18.i386.rpm
3. Before running './configure', modify this file and hardcode the following:
```
CURSESINC=''; CURSESLIB='-lncurses';
```
Load the sound card drivers by running the following commands as user root:
```
# modprobe snd-card-cs461x
# modprobe snd-pcm-oss
```

Kick start the drivers using:

$ amixer set Master 70 unmute 
$ amixer set PCM 70 unmute 
$ amixer set CD 70 unmute

Test the drivers using:
```
$ aplay soundfilename
```
Tweak settings to your aural taste using:
```
$ alsamixer
```
Save configuration using:
```
$ alsactl store
```

Make changes to load the drivers at System Startup. (Not yet tested by me.)
The ALSA modules can be configured to load at system boot by adding the following lines to the file /etc/conf.modules or /etc/modules.conf.

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias snd-card-0 snd-card-cs461x
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-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

Link /etc/rc.d/init.d/alsasound with /etc/rc*.d/*alsasound

Note that the sound card drivers may stop functioning after the laptop has been suspended and resumed. The sound card should start working again after reloading the drivers by running the following commands as user root:

# rmmod snd-card-cs461x
# insmod snd-card-cs461x

A more robust solution to this problem would be to configure the apm daemon to reload the sound system after a resume event.

Introduction

Instructions

Further Reading