CentOS - Jul 2009 - Trouble running 'alsamixer' as normal user on headless box with minimal system

Hi,

I just transformed an old Pentium III 500 into a headless jukebox. It's 
installed in the basement, near the stereo. There's only a base CentOS 
system on it (GNOME unchecked, package customization checked and then 
everything unchecked). From there on, I just installed the ALSA utils, 
and vorbis-tools. The machine is only supposed to do one thing (and to 
do it well, UNIX philosophy :oD): fetch an audio stream (produced by 
MPD/Icecast upstairs on a big PC) and then output it from the soundcard 
to the AUX IN from the stereo.

I have a partial - and near-total - success, in that everything runs 
fine... as root user. Whenever I try to run alsamixer as a normal user 
on that box, I get the following error message:

[kikinovak at jukebox ~]$ alsamixer

alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or 
directory

Something similar happens with ogg123, which runs fine as root, but 
produces the following error message as plain user:

[kikinovak at jukebox ~]$ ogg123 http://babasse:8000/jukebox.ogg
ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
ALSA lib conf.c:3513:(_snd_config_evaluate) function 
snd_func_card_driver returned error: Aucun fichier ou r?pertoire de ce type
ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:3513:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat 
returned error: Aucun fichier ou r?pertoire de ce type
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:3513:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer 
returned error: Aucun fichier ou r?pertoire de ce type
ALSA lib conf.c:3985:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: Aucun fichier 
ou r?pertoire de ce type
ALSA lib pcm.c:2184:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
=== Impossible de charger le pilote par d?faut, et aucun autre pilote 
n'est indiqu? dans le fichier de configuration. Terminaison.


Now I guess there must be something missing, because on my other 
machines (with a full-blown desktop installed), alsamixer runs fine as 
normal user.

Any idea what could be wrong here?

Cheers from the hot south of France,

Niki

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Niki Kovacs<contact at kikinovak.net>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just transformed an old Pentium III 500 into a headless jukebox. It's
> installed in the basement, near the stereo. There's only a base CentOS
> system on it (GNOME unchecked, package customization checked and then
> everything unchecked). From there on, I just installed the ALSA utils,
> and vorbis-tools. The machine is only supposed to do one thing (and to
> do it well, UNIX philosophy :oD): fetch an audio stream (produced by
> MPD/Icecast upstairs on a big PC) and then output it from the soundcard
> to the AUX IN from the stereo.
>
> I have a partial - and near-total - success, in that everything runs
> fine... as root user. Whenever I try to run alsamixer as a normal user
> on that box, I get the following error message:
>
> [kikinovak at jukebox ~]$ alsamixer
>
> alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or
> directory
>
> Something similar happens with ogg123, which runs fine as root, but
> produces the following error message as plain user:
>
> [kikinovak at jukebox ~]$ ogg123 http://babasse:8000/jukebox.ogg
> ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
> ALSA lib conf.c:3513:(_snd_config_evaluate) function
> snd_func_card_driver returned error: Aucun fichier ou r?pertoire de ce type
> ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
> ALSA lib conf.c:3513:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat
> returned error: Aucun fichier ou r?pertoire de ce type
> ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
> ALSA lib conf.c:3513:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer
> returned error: Aucun fichier ou r?pertoire de ce type
> ALSA lib conf.c:3985:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: Aucun fichier
> ou r?pertoire de ce type
> ALSA lib pcm.c:2184:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
> === Impossible de charger le pilote par d?faut, et aucun autre pilote
> n'est indiqu? dans le fichier de configuration. Terminaison.
>
>
> Now I guess there must be something missing, because on my other
> machines (with a full-blown desktop installed), alsamixer runs fine as
> normal user.
>
> Any idea what could be wrong here?
>
> Cheers from the hot south of France,
>
> Niki
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
ls -al /dev/{dsp,audio} ?

On Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:24:41 +0200
Niki Kovacs wrote:
>  fetch an audio stream (produced by 
> MPD/Icecast upstairs on a big PC) 
Answering your question with one of my own, what's the "big PC"
running?

I was under the impression that Icecast didn't currently get along well with
Centos 5.  (The reason that I'm asking is becasue I may be setting up an
Icecast
server at some point -- project approval still hasn't showed up -- and would
prefer to do it on Centos if I can.)

-- 
MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Melville Sask ~ http://www.melvilletheatre.com