sound problems and devfs

[Keith Antoine]

I have not been getting replies to recent mail, I just noticed that I had a 
return address of kantoine at CPE-203-45-140-190 instead of the correct address.
Kmail picked up the IP instead. Hopefully I might be better now.

I assume that the problems I am experiencing are due to my inability to get 
to grips with devfs as opposed to the old /dev.
I have occasion to use 'alevt' the teletext prog, however it has operated but 
now does not, for some reason. What it is returning is::

alevt: /dev/vbi: No such file or directory
alevt: cannot open /dev/vbi

However there exists a device in /dev/v4l/vbi0 along with devices for video0 
and video1. I also have problems with programs that are accessing the video 
drivers too. There also exist character devices pointing to the above in 
/dev, but when I try to access them they 'do not exist'. The alevt calls vbi 
not vbi0, so I did a link but still does not 'see' it and on a reboot the 
link is destroyed. video calls /dev/video and the result is the same. I have 
tried chmod 666 and 777 on the devices and also chown kantoine:users to no 
avail, of course they disappear on reboot.

Mjpegtools 'lavrec' will not startup to record as it cannot find ::

++ WARN: [lavrec] Unable to set negative priority for main thread
++ WARN: [lavrec] Pthread Real-time scheduling for main thread could not be 
enabled
++ WARN: [lavrec] Unable to set negative priority for audio thread.
++ WARN: [lavrec] Pthread Real-time scheduling for audio thread could not be 
enabled.
**ERROR: [lavrec] Unable to get audio - exiting ....

So the audio is not found, bet video will not be found either. AFAIAC 'audio'
is /dev/dsp which exists as does /dev/mixer all pointing to /dev/sound

[kantoine at CPE-203-45-140-190 kantoine]$ ls -l /dev/sound
total 0
crw-------    1 kantoine audio     14,   3 Jan  1  1970 dsp
crw-------    1 kantoine audio     14,   0 Jan  1  1970 mixer
crw-------    1 kantoine audio     14,  15 Jan  1  1970 unknown

Yes there exists a /dev/unknown (what is this). Again tried what I did to vbi 
all again did not work. So I need some advice from someone who has been here 
before as to how the hell I get them 'seen'...................
Is it to do with /etc/devfsd.conf ??

Me little brain I have left is now very numb and not working well at all.
-- 
Keith Antoine (GANDALF) aka 'skippy'
18 Arkana St, The Gap, Queensland 4061 Australia PH:61733002161
Retired Geriatric, Sometime Electronics Engineer, Knowall, Brain in storage