Re: [Alsa-user] Missing /dev/dsp

[Clemens L. <cl...@la...>]

Miles Crawford wrote:
> At first, I could get a few apps to make sound (Gaim and XMMS once I
> installed the alsa output mod for it) but most programs told me I had no
> output device.
>
> Well, I checked it out, and found that there was no /dev/dsp present.
> Since the /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c is equivalent i tried:
>
> mcrawfor@oztar mcrawfor $ ln -s /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c /dev/dsp

These files are _not_ equivalent. Don't do this.

> ...
> So my current hack to get this thing to work is a line at the botton of my
> alsasound init script that just says:
>
> touch /dev/dsp
>
> Which spontaneously creates the /dev/dsp in a working fashion.  Any ideas
> why this crazy thing is happening?

This is devfs autoloading, which is controlled by the following lines:

> # Enable module autoloading. You may comment this out if you don't use
> # autoloading
> LOOKUP          .*           MODLOAD
> ...
> LOOKUP          dsp          MODLOAD

When /dev/dsp is accessed, devfs automatically loads snd-pcm-oss.
Why this only happens if you try to write to /dev/dsp, and not when
some programs tries to open it normally, I don't know.


Regards,
Clemens