Linux Sound Error: Could not open /dev/dsp (Solution)

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Tchernobog
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Linux Sound Error: Could not open /dev/dsp (Solution)

Post by Tchernobog »

For those of you who are running Transfusion from a Linux based system, you may be encountering a sound error such as the one below:
Sound Initialization
/dev/dsp: No such file or directory
Could not open /dev/dsp
S_Startup: SNDDMA_Init failed.
This is not a bug in Transfusion itself, but is instead due to the outdated OSS sound system on Linux which has been giving me trouble. The only system where it worked perfectly for me was an installation of Fedora 10, but in subsequent versions the problems have came up again. I do however have a solution for this problem.

Load up a Terminal with Root privileges, and insert the following commands:
/sbin/modprobe snd_pcm_oss
chmod 777 /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss
After this point, cd into the directory where Transfusion is installed and type in the following commands:
echo "transfusion-glx 0 0 direct" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss
You should now be able to play Transfusion fully with working audio. This is not a permant fix however, and must be redone each time your Computer is restarted.

I hope in the future that Transfusion will uss the ALSA sound system rather than OSS, as more modern games do such as Doom 3 or Nexuiz.

I would like to thank Anderson Silva for his article here which taught me the commands:
http://linuxgazette.net/172/silva.html
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