KMix not working right

[dinamos]

Installed on a new machine, amd 64, KDE 4.7.3, and sound has issues. I can call KMIx from the app menu and it appears to be loading in the task bar but then just dies without error. I can call it up from the tool tray icon and it displays the normal controls but with two tabs that are labeled "OSS Audio mixers being re-drawn".
I can play system sounds and audio files but I can't play a CD or DVD from the optical drive, What's going on here?

[dinamos]

No takers? More info:

- Gigabyte Mini ITX MB
- AMD E350 dual core CPU
- Realteck ALC892 audio chipset

Loaded MS XP and the Gigabyte driver CD. Every thing loaded quickly with the SATA 3 HD. Installed PCBSD 9 and ran into a problem with no CD or DVD playback.
Tried to resolve the problem by solutions in the PCBSD handbook without success.
Reloaded MS XP and verified CD and DVD playback worked. Loaded Linux Mint and verified CD and DVD worked. Reloaded PCBSD and CD and DVD playback don't work.
I can play system sounds and videos from files but Amarok and Kscd don't "see" anything in the optical drive to play. I can rip from the optical drive and write to it as well.
What's wrong with this picture?

[Ole Juul]

Hi dinamos,
I don't have a direct answer for you, but wanted to welcome you to the forums so you didn't feel like you were being ignored.

I suppose you already did this, but if you type "mixer" on the command line, you will see what channels are open. If you don't see what you expect, there is no harm in trying different settings using sysctl. There is an abbreviated explanation of how to do that at the bottom of this wiki page.

[dinamos]

Thanks Ole Juul,
I tried the trouble shooting options from the handbook without success. That's when I went back and reloaded Linux Mint and confirmed my hardware was all in good working order.
If I can't find a solution soon there won't be much point. What good is an OS that won't operate?

[Ole Juul]

Thanks Ole Juul,
I tried the trouble shooting options from the handbook without success. That's when I went back and reloaded Linux Mint and confirmed my hardware was all in good working order.
If I can't find a solution soon there won't be much point. What good is an OS that won't operate?

Did you type "cat /dev/sndstat" to see what default was used? I think your hardware should be compatible with any Linux or BSD OS so it is probably something trivial. While searching the net about your problem, I noticed one person had a related problem where Win-XP would work but BSD wouldn't - it turned out to be a wiring problem that XP didn't mind, but BSD did. Like I said earlier, there is no harm in trying all the devices in the "sndstat" list to see which one works properly.

I do hope you get it going. PC-BSD "operates" very well for a lot of people, but I also know from personal experience that Mint is a great OS, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to go with that either.

[Cobalt]

Have you tried playing a DVD with VLC? I wonder if the audio issue could be fixed by removing KDE with the System Manager and re-installing it?

I'll experiment with this tomorrow. For now, I must sleep.