Datasheet

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Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10
After the installation is complete, confirm that sound is working by attempting to
play a music CD or music file (for example, an MP3 file using the
xmmsplayer pro-
gram). If you don’t hear sound at this stage, first check the physical connection to
the speakers. Then (if you are using KDE) check that the KDE volume control is at
a sensible setting and not disabled or turned down to zero. In the unlikely event
that sound still fails to work, you can rerun the YaST sound module in expert mode.
The sound module is found in YaST’s Hardware section. You will find three possible
setup modes:
✦ Quick automatic setup — This is the default and is the one that is used during
installation.
✦ Normal setup — This enables you to test the sound card. There is a volume
control and a test button. When you have set the volume, a test sound is
played when you press test.
✦ More detailed installation of sound cards — If you choose this option, you
will be taken to a screen where any configurable options for the particular
sound card that has been detected can be set. Depending on the particular
card, these may include settings to enable a joystick and MPU (midi process-
ing unit) port settings.
If even experimentation with the detailed installation options fails, you can try the
low-level
alsaconf program. As root, type alsaconf to start the program. It is a text-
based program that, in fact, provides the back end for YaST’s sound configuration
module, but running it standalone gives you the opportunity to use its command-line
options, including
alsaconf –l, which writes a log file to /tmp/alsaconf.log that may
give a clue as to the problem.
The ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) home page can be found at www
.alsa-project.org. This is the best place to start if you have any difficulties with
configuration of sound on Linux.
Completing Installation
Once you have finished with your hardware configuration, click Next.
It has been a long road, but you have successfully installed SUSE at this point (see
Figure 1-33). Pat yourself on the back if you are a brand-new user to the world of
Linux. You have done a lot of new things by installing SUSE — not the least of which
is that you have begun a journey on which you’ll learn lots of new ideas and
philosophies, as well as giving you a stable operating system to use.
Tip
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