6.1.85 Soundsupport for my Dell 3500 wasn't a wise thing to do (I definitely seem to have my share of sound-related problems...) - sndconfig crashed the machine hard, after detecting the Neomagic 256 sound "card" (it's a laptop). Bad enough. The real bad part was that it had created a conf.modules and tried to load the sound module - which crashed the computer hard every time. Turning off the sound from the BIOS didn't help - I could never get into the system. And (this is bad) - using single user mode didn't work either, as it still tried to load the module which crashed the computer.
The absolute latest sndconfig, after selecting but before loading the Neomagic driver, pops up a warning that says' "This driver is known to lock Dell Inspiron 3500s; are you sure you wish to continue?" Admittedly, it's a band-aid. We'll look at fixing the driver for an update.
*** Bug 5382 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** If your system contains certain sound cards (Dell Inspiron 3500 ) you can end up with a locked system that can only be edited from a rescue mode. The problem is that sndconfig edits /etc/conf.modules before it tests if your system has a working sound card. On installing module it can crash the system. If you reboot you cannot get around the modules being loaded even if you do a linux single because of /etc/conf.modules syntax. Suggested Fix: a) have sndconfig test modules via explicit insmod commands and at end of run write /etc/conf.modules b) have initscripts not load sound modules in single user mode ------- Additional Comments From notting 09/26/99 18:57 ------- FWIW, sndconfig does tell you it's writing a new conf.modules. :) Boot with "linux nomodules"; alternatively "linux init=/bin/bash".