How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8?

December 18, 2009, 9:55 pm by Rhyous

FreeBSD doesn’t enable the sound by default. However it is simple to detect and enable your sound card.

Step 1 – Detect Your Sound Cound

  1. Install all sound kernel modules by running the following command:

    FBSD# kldload snd_driver

  2. Check which kernel module was able to bind to your sound card by running this command:

    FBSD# cat /dev/sndstat

    The output will be similar to this but of course you may have a different sound card:

    FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm: 64bit 2009061500/amd64)
    Installed devices:
    pcm0: at io 0x2040 irq 16 kld snd_es137x [MPSAFE] (2p:1v/1r:1v channels duplex default)
  3. Notice on the last line after kld there is a snd_. This is you sound card kernel module.

Step 2 - Enable the kernel module for your sound card

  1. Configure your the kernel module of your sound card to load at boot by adding it to the /boot/loader.conf as follows.

    FBSD# echo 'snd_es137x_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf

    (Of course when you run the command, replace "es137x_" with the letters you see in the output for your sound card.)
    Note: If you look at the /boot/default/loader.conf you can find information on proper syntax exactly for your module and other modules.

Your sound card should now be working.

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27 Comments

  1. Gaylord Mceniry says:
    July 20, 2019 at 4:31 pm

    This blog was... how do I say it? Relevant!! Finally I've found something which helped me.
    Thanks a lot!

    Reply to this comment
  2. Emanuel says:
    December 29, 2018 at 5:14 pm

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    Reply to this comment
  3. Angelika Krites says:
    November 29, 2018 at 7:10 am

    Williams Sergent

    blog topic

    Reply to this comment
  4. momo33 says:
    October 13, 2011 at 4:55 am

    "Notice on the last line after kld there is a snd_. This is you sound card kernel module. "

    After following the first steps you told us to do I merely get this output.

    ICH4 (82801DB) > Play/rec default

    And so I am now lost a to what the driver is and how to load it....

    Reply to this comment
  5. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? | Rhyous says:
    September 5, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    [...] Step 8 – Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  6. knutselaar says:
    September 26, 2010 at 11:42 pm

    using sound together with Wine (for example in combination with Spotity) did not work for me.
    I resolved this by using the OSS-driver. I did pkg_add -r oss (I had the portstree installed) and after that:

    FBSD#echo 'oss_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf

    Reply to this comment
  7. Guillaume says:
    April 10, 2010 at 6:15 pm

    I have freebsd 8 on vmware 7.x with kde4

    Reply to this comment
  8. Guillaume says:
    April 9, 2010 at 7:26 pm

    Hi,

    I have a problem, when I run "kld_load snd_driver" and then "cat /dev/sndstat"

    I have only this :

    FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm: 64bit 2009061500/amd64)
    Installed devices:

    do you have any solution ?

    thx

    Reply to this comment
  9. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  10. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  11. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  12. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  13. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  14. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  15. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  16. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  17. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  18. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  19. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  20. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  21. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  22. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  23. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  24. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment
  25. How to install and configure a FreeBSD 8 Desktop with Xorg and KDE? « Rhyous's 127.0.0.1 or ::1 says:
    December 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    [...] Step 8 - Enable your sound card I already have an article on this here and it is so very simple. How to enable sound in FreeBSD 8? [...]

    Reply to this comment

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