Hi, The notes played by GRUB at boot time use the internal buzzer, not the sound card, that's why you could hear these notes. To understand the issue with your hardware it would help to use alsa-info.sh like this (as root to using sudo): alsa-info.sh --no-upload --output alsa-info.txt You can always get the last version of alsa-info.sh like this: wget http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh Feel free to send me the file alsa-info.sh directly: didier at slint dot fr Cheers, Didier Le 26/09/2023 à 15:48, Linux for blind general discussion a écrit : > I am sorry, but I have bad news. I downloaded the image, sent it > to a 32-GB usb card and tried it. The system immediately found > the EFI partition and played the 3 notes in ascending order > within 5 or 10 seconds after powering on. I pressed Enter and > waited and waited and waited, left the room for a few minutes, > came back, waited some more but that was the last sound. > > Later, it occurred to me that I might get it to talk if > there was a usb sound card since those devices are in common use > everywhere. > > I now had this lap top with a 4-port extender containing > a full-size keyboard and the 128-GB thumb drive that was the > target of the Linux installation so why not also plug in a usb sound > card. > > I did and slint found that card. This is a very good way > to set this part of the installation since the person doing the > install must respond. > > I did make several later tries and confirmed that this > lap top's native sound interface is like a lot of native sound > interfaces in that it is too proprietary for it's own good. > > One of my favorite items when doing this sort of thing is a > portable AM radio to more or less get an electroencephalogram of > whether the computer seems to still be alive. One tunes to a > blank spot near the low end of the AM band if there is no radio > station there and listens to the static that the circuitry in the > computer makes as it computes. > > If something is wrong and the computer locks up, the > crackle, pop, beep and squeak abruptly stop and there is nothing > but the hiss of the radio. > > The computer, in this case, doesn't lock up but slint > never sees a viable native sound interface to probe. I hear lots > of zips, pops squeaks and beeps of all kinds indicating that the > computer is still alive and well but not talking. Adding the usb > sound card gives slint something it can recognize as a sound > interface. It did start voicing the screen just like it should > but it should have found the native interface automatically. > > I have another Debian 11 distribution that uses the same > concept of sending an English message to every sound card asking > one to press enter if this is the correct card and it talks all > the time through the installation process. > > For now, I am using that installer since it is the same > debian version I wanted anyway which is bullseye or debian 11. > > That install image does find the HP lap top's native > sound interface. When the installation is complete, it has > produced some unpleasant surprises on other systems I have used > it on if their native sound cards were particularly complex. One > system, for instance, talked all the way through the installation > but wouldn't reliably talk after booting to the installed system. > Simply unplugging the speaker or plugging in a set of headphones > would kill the audio. It turned out to think that hdmi was > supposed to be the correct output. > > If this helps any, this lap top appears to have no > trouble sending the musical notes at the boot time. The oldest > PC's had a system for making noises which you are probably very > familiar with which used a timer-counter integrated circuit that > was fed from a roughly 1-MHZ clock. The 16-bit counter in the > chip is fed with some constant depending upon what note or pitch > one needs. There is also a gate which connects pure DC to the > speaker or nothing if we are on the low half of the cycle. Tones > are produced by stuffing this constant in to the counter and the > counter counts down to 0 and then restarts after sending a pulse > to the speaker. > > You can get an amazing number of noises out of such a > circuit from Morse Code to at least video-game quality music. > > I am guessing this lap top has some modern version of > that noise-maker timer-counter-switch in order for the music to > come through but obviously, we need to find the built-in sound > card for speech to work. > > I am certainly not complaining about slint. As one who > likes to tinker with computers, PIC microcontrollers and radios, > I know how difficult it is to make just about anything work over > the broad range of situations that public users produce so, if > there is any information I can provide to help, I am glad to do > so. > > Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: >> Hi Martin, >> >> sorry for the mistake in the Handbook. Of course I should have written: >> >> wget https://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-15.0/iso/slint64-15.0-5.iso >> wget >> https://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-15.0/iso/slint64-15.0-5.iso.sha256 >> >> then: >> sha256sum -c slint64-15.0-5.iso.sha256 >> >> I will fix that and/or make a link like slint64-15.0-latest.iso >> >> Cheers, >> Didier > > _______________________________________________ > Blinux-list mailing list > Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx > https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list > _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list