Skype, webcam, WinXP and sound in VL SOHO

[boris]

Right from the start - I have no idea what is happening, but it is funny!

My box has a dual boot, either WinXP or VL SOHO 5.9. Both systems are completely isolated, to the extent that they are located on different drives. Windows lives on hda, VL lives on hdb, and there is GRUB which boots one of the two.

I bought a Logitech S-5500 webcam, and since it had a CD with WinXP drivers, I installed these drivers there. Next on the same CD there was a prompt, inviting me to open a Skype account (of course under WinXP). I did this, and the same evening was able to chat from Moscow with my friends in Texas and in Ukraine. Thereafter I turned the box off.

Next morning I turned the computer on and directed GRUB to boot VL SOHO. To my surprise I got an error message:

Error while initializing the sound driver
device:default can't be opened for playback 
(no such file or directory)

Obviously the sound was 100% mute. I rebooted the computer, the message and the result were the same.

Then I remembered about the webcam and disconnected it from the USB port. Reboot the computer - no nasty messages, the sound works.

Can anybody shed some light, why does the installation of the webcam under WinXP block the initialization of the sound driver under VL SOHO, and why physically disconnecting the webcam brings the things back to normal? Also, is there a way to change this behevior and to teach VL SOHO that the connected webcam is not an enemy?

Best wishes. BNK

[budulay]

Hi Борис, the following is just a wild guess:
I have no vision how XP drivers could have affected the sound on your VL install. Also when you removed the camera the problem was gone, therefore I conclude that drivers have no relation to the sound problem, but the camera does. What I think has happened(I never had any experience with webcams, therefore once again, this is just a wild half-educated guess) is that the camera loaded some kernel module that conflicts with the module that your sound card loads... What you can do to check this is to boot your computer without the camera and run "lsmod" in the shell as a root. Then save the output and reboot with the camera and do the same thing. Then compare the two and find which module is loaded after the second boot, but isn't during the first.
Another thing that comes to mind is that you can google your camera model to find out, maybe someone had this problem too.

HTH

[boris]

Hi Будулай, I had the same kinds of guesses, but even if I discover which module causes the problem, what am I going to do with it? Is there a way to stop the module from loading, or to remove the module once it is installed?

I tried to do a YAHOO search on "error in initializing sound driver", but all I got were various forum archives, from "archlinux" to "UBUNTU" - people complain a lot, but help or howto-s are practically nonexistent.

I'll wait, maybe someone will have an idea how to explain to this piece of pumpkin that I want it to work while keeping the USB connector inserted. If not, I'll try the full reinstallation. Maybe installing the Linux version of Skype will help, then the USB device will have the drivers of its own and will free the device for audio playback.

Anyway. thank you for even bothering to reply, other professionals just keep silence.
Best wishes BNK.

[stretchedthin]

You could try this, I think it applies.
http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=4888.0

Ken

[budulay]

Yes, you can blacklist a certain module to prevent it from loading and you can load a module of your choice by adding the module's name to the appropriate config file(I don't have much experience with that, but I have seen lots of material on this forum about module loading)

There seems to be hardware incompatibility problems with this web cam across the board...
I googled for the error message and found couple of hints. Unfortunately I have no time right now - the week has just started, but I am already tired like a dog and want to be sleeping like a log
You need to have a UVC driver running(http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/) - I don't know whether it is installed in VL, and here are some links that may help. I have not read them all the way, just did a surface look.

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=148776%20.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=210111
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/archive/index.php/t-161633.html
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/soundblaster-not-working-alsa-driver-missing-479419/

I do not think that full reinstallation will help. You can try using VASM to do a hardware detection and you will have the same result(as far as I know).
There are many brilliant people in this community, I am sure somebody will be able to help you.

HTH

[boris]

You could try this, I think it applies.
http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=4888.0

Ken

Yes, thanks, Ken, this should apply.
However, when I turned the computer on today, it activated the sound even with the webcam connected. I don't like these miracles, but it's impossible to fix something that is not broken.
I'll keep this hint handy in case the error will emerge some time later.

Best wishes. BNK

[rbistolfi]

You could try this, I think it applies.
http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=4888.0

However, when I turned the computer on today, it activated the sound even with the webcam connected. I don't like these miracles, but it's impossible to fix something that is not broken.
I'll keep this hint handy in case the error will emerge some time later.

Boris, the thing is that the modules (drivers if you like) are not loaded in particular order. This time, the proper modules were loaded first and your soundcard got the default mixer. If you follow the howto, you will fix it in a definitive way.

[boris]

You could try this, I think it applies.
http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=4888.0

Ken

WORKS LIKE A SWISS WATCH !!!

Thanks! BNK