[K12OSN] can't get sound on Dell GX1's using K12LTSP v 5

[Les Mikesell]

Timothy Legge wrote:
> On 4/4/07, Jim Anderson <jand689 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> I've been trying to get sound without success.  I have a room full of 
>> DellGX1 computers.  According to
>> Dell's specs, and as confirmed with a Knoppix live CD, the sound chip 
>> is a
>> CS4236.  I have changed my lts.conf to reflect this.  here's the relevant
>> section:
>>
> 
> I finally got the sound in a Dell with the CS4236 working by disabling the
> onboard sound and inserting a new $12.00 PCI sound card.  After a number of
> hours I decided that it was no longer worth my time.  The ALSA that Peter
> mentioned recognized the new card immediately and works great.
> 
> While I welcome Dell's possible entrance into selling Linux, I really hope
> they contribute what ever is necessary to make their hardware work well...

Keep in mind that the GX1's are ancient. The only issue with the CS4236 
is that it sits on the ISA bus on the motherboard so the PCI scan done 
by modern linux versions won't find the right settings.  If you supply 
the module parameters it should still work.  There is probably some 
pattern to the MAC address range on these boxes.  Is there a way to do a 
setting in lts.conf that applies to a range instead of a specific address?

And one great thing about Dell is that they make bios updates and other 
downloads available forever.  The original GX1 bios had a problem with 
PXE booting, but you can still get the update to fix it.


-- 
   Les Mikesell
    les at futuresource.com