[wellylug] alsa sound modules

[Rob Collins]

Hi.  In an attempt to get my very old sony PCG-747 vaio laptop working 
as a network mpd music server I have come across a stumbling block, 
can't get alsa to behave and produce sound.  Hardy Heron "auto" detected 
the chip and alsamixer shows that the onboard soundchip ensoniq ES1879 
has been correctly identified.  When I play a track with mpd mpc all i 
get is a hissing in the vague rhythm of the track i expected to hear.

This is the first incarnation of ubuntu that has "auto-detected" the 
chip on this machine and I have had sound running before by vague 
recollection of manually loading an earlier version of the alsa sound 
module so i tried:

sudo modprobe -r snd-es18xx
sudo modprobe snd-es1688
sudo alsa force-reload

the verbose shows the snd-es18xx module being unloaded and then the 
snd-es1688 being loaded.  I then do:

alsamixer

which spits out:/ alsamixer/: /function snd_ctl_open/ failed for 
default: No such file or directory
instead of running the mixer, a common error hear.

Is there anyway to experiment with different alsa sound modules or are 
things so automated now that this is a lost cause.  Is there also 
anything I might try to get the snd-es18xx (which in theory should have 
been the right choice anyway) module working without having to muck 
around with trying to load the snd-es1688?

Any help greatly appreciated,
Rob
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