ac97 sound device not detected (alc655 codec)

[Vincent Stemen]

On 2007-01-04, walt <wa1ter at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Vincent Stemen wrote:
>> ...
>> 
>> I had to directly load the snd_via8233.ko module.  It turns out that
>> snd.ko was apparently loading all the sound modules except for two.
>> snd_via8233.ko and snd_uaudio.ko....
>
>> So the question is, why did snd.ko not load two of the modules?  It is
>> just my luck that it happens to be the one for our sound device.  Is
>> that a bug or a feature?...
>
> Very interesting.  You just solved a puzzle for me.  I tried compiling
> the 'pcm' device into my custom kernel -- which never worked!  I always
> had to load the via8233 module manually at boot, and now I know why.
> (My SWAG would be that this is more buggish than featurish.)
>
> Just as a minor aside, loading the via module will automatically pull in
> the snd_pcm module, so you needn't load it explicitly.  As a more major
> aside, I do not load the snd module at all, and yet my sound works fine.
>
> Can you try loading only the snd_via8233.ko from loader.conf and see if
> you get satisfactory sound?  What other modules get loaded when you try
> this?
>
> Thanks.

Yes, loading only the snd_via8233.ko is actually what I did once I knew
that was the correct module.  It does automatically load snd_pcm.ko and
work fine.  The main reason I was loading snd.ko was because I did not
know which sound module I needed.  It is also nice to be able to use
snd.ko for installing on a variety of hardware if it will load all the
snd modules so it will work out of the box.

Actually, I loaded snd_via8233.ko manually with kldload rather than from
loader, but I am sure it would work fine.  I was able to load snd_pcm
from loader.conf using snd_pcm_load=yes.  Although, snd_load=yes did not
seem to work.  Loader does not seem to support loading the top level
sound module.