CentOS

I am running VMWare player/workstatoin 12.5 on CentOS 7.5. I have a couple of CentOS 7.5 VMs which were built a few months back. They work fine including sound. More recently built VMs have no working sound. Here is my build process:

Install CentOS minimal (command line)
yum update
install yum-priorities and elep-release
set CentOS-Base repos priority=1 and epel priority=10
yum groupinstall "X Window system" mate-desktop-environment
systemctl set-default graphical.target

Examining the sound settings under the control center on the working VMs I find this hardware

Code: Select all

ES1371/ES1373 / Creative Labs CT2518 (Audio PCI 64V/128/5200 / Creative CT4810/CT5803/CT5806 [Sound Blaster PCI])
1 Output / 2 Inputs
Analog Stereo Duplex

and on the silent machines

Code: Select all

Ensoniq AudioPCI
1 Output / 1 Input

But it gets more interesting...

I built another VM using the same iso file but I selected Gnome Desktop rather than minimal install. This time I have sound and I find the Sound Blaster audio "hardware." Finally I just completed building a "Server with GUI" VM and it also has the Sound Blaster.

My questions are:

Why does anaconda(?) detect different hardware in the same virtual environment?

More importantly, how can I "change" the sound card in the silent VMs?

I have tried removing the sound card using Virtual Machine Settings (in VMWare player) and then adding back a sound card. I have tried the 3 "Use physical sound card" choices Auto Detect, ALSA: Default sound card and ALSA: HDA Intel PCH. The first two give me the non-working card and the third says something to the effect card not found.

TIA,

Ken

I did some further looking on both VMs. These results are identical.

Code: Select all

lspci
...
02:02.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371/ES1373 / Creative Labs CT2518 (rev 02)

sudo lsmod | grep snd
snd_seq_midi           13565  0 
snd_seq_midi_event     14899  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_ens1371            25076  3 
snd_rawmidi            31294  2 snd_ens1371,snd_seq_midi
snd_ac97_codec        130556  1 snd_ens1371
ac97_bus               12730  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_seq                62785  2 snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_device         14356  3 snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_pcm               101643  2 snd_ac97_codec,snd_ens1371
snd_timer              29810  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd                    79215  13 snd_ac97_codec,snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_ens1371,snd_seq_device
soundcore              15047  1 snd

Only the Sound Preferences applet under Control Center; Hardware shows a difference. And of course on the no sound VM I cannot configure the bogus sound device in Sound Preferences.

Ken

One of the great benefits of these forums is that, even when an answer is not forthcoming, the process of writing an intelligent question helps me to focus on what I am after. It helps to clarify things in my mind. In doing some more research I came across a web site which made a comment to the effect that installing CentOS minimal, then X Window system and then the desired desktop environment sometimes left out some packages. I suspected that something was missing or wrong. So...

I determined the packages installed on the working VM (rpm -q -l | sort > working.txt) and did the same on the silent VM. I compared the two lists with my favorite comparison utility Beyond Compare (scootersoftware.com) and looked for anything which smelled like a sound related package. The guilty missing package was pulseaudio. I installed that package on the silent VM (from CentOS-Base) and, after adjusting the output sound level above 0, I had sound

I have no idea why this package used to be installed but is not any longer. However, I do know how to make my silent VMs speak!

Cheers,

Ken
This thread my be marked SOLVED.

CentOS

Sound card in Virtual Machine

Sound card in Virtual Machine

Re: Sound card in Virtual Machine

Re: Sound card in Virtual Machine