FC 2 Sound problem (probably due to user ignorance)

[David Curry]

Greetings everyone.  I recently migrated my desktop system from RH 8 to 
Fedora Core 2 and need a little help.  My limited linux technical 
knowledge is dimmed (and outdated) from lack of use since migrating from 
RH 7.1 to RH 8.  If my questions/issues come across as "noise" I ask for 
tolerance (and your pardon).

Installation of FC-2 was smooth and easy for the most part.  Only two 
problems surfaced right away - one I have resolved (scanning and 
printing support for a HP multi-function officeJet) and one that I need 
help on (sound).

The system is runing kernel 2.6.10-1.8_FC2 using a Gigabyte GA-7VAX 
motherboard with onboard sound chips.  The system hardware browser 
reports FC-2 hardware probing modules detect the sound hardware and 
report it as VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC 97 Audio Controller manufactured by 
VIA Technologies and list the driver as snd-via82xx.  [Alsamixer  
(v1.0.3) identifies the sound hardware as a VIA 8235 card with Realtek 
ALC650E chipset.]

Gigabyte documentation for the motherboard describe the onboard sound 
components as Realtek ALC650 CODEC.  Drawing on info from 
ALSA-project.org documentation, I used terminal command line entries to 
confirm presence of the snd-via82xx driver in the kernel ("modinfo 
soundcore") and alsamixer to make sure that the sound card was not 
"muted".   I also "unmuted" all sound functions via the Gnome Volume 
Control graphical application.   Test of the sound facilities with 
Gnome's graphical Sound Card Detection utility in "System Settings" 
still produced no sound.

After stumbling across a reference to "etc/modules.conf" in a document 
located through a file search for that expression, I gather that 2.6.x 
kernels look in a file named /etc/modprobe.conf instead of 
/etc/modules.conf for startup parameters.  My system's modprobe.conf 
contents appear questionable but I haven't been able to find a template 
or sample for modprobe.conf entries needed to turn on the sound 
support.  The ALSA-Project.org documentation leaves me with many 
unanswered questions.

Current /etc/modprobe.conf contents are:

alias eth0 8139too
alias eth1 8139too
alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx
install snd-via82xx /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-via82xx && 
/usr/sbin/alsact1 restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
remove snd-via82xx { /usr/sbin/alsact1 store >/dev/null 2>&1 || : 
/sbin/modeprobe -r
--ignore-remove snd-via82xx
alias usb-controller ehci-hcd
alias usb-controller1 uhci-hcd

What do I need to do to the modprobe.conf file to enable sound support 
with the snd-via82xx driver?

Do I need to also add references in modprobe.conf to "snd-pcm-oss", 
"snd-mixer-oss", "snd-seq-oss" (which are mentioned in the ALSA project 
documentation)?

Do I need "the .asoundrc file" mentioned in ALSA documentation?

Thanks in advance for any and all assistance offered.

Dave C.