[CLUE-Tech] hp sound card under mandrake

[David Anselmi]

James LaRue wrote:
> I have an HP Pavilion A520n, with an nvidia nforce2 sound card. I'm 
> trying to run it under Mandrake Community 10 -- and find that I get no 
> sound directly from the CD driver. I CAN rip a track, then play it under 
> xmms. Googling on it, I found that someone said all you had to do is run 
> a cable from thbe cd drive to the sound card -- which seems mighty 
> backward. Anybody know a software solution?
> 

CDROM drives are capable of decoding audio CDs into an audio signal 
(that's what their audio connector is for).  Sound cards are capable of 
using that signal to make noise come out of your speakers.  The whole 
process bypasses the CPU/motherboard.  Not backward, kind of nice.  I 
could listen to audio CDs long before I set up drivers for my CDROM or 
sound card.

Besides connecting the audio cable you might also have to use a mixer to 
set up the sound card so the CD audio channel is hearable.  But maybe 
not if Mandrake is as easy as everyone says.

To pull the bits off the CD and decode them in software, you can use 
xmms.  You might need to install or configure the right plugin and have 
access to the right device.

Dave