How to get ICH AC97 audio controller to work under Ubuntu Server

I have installed Ubuntu Server 11.04 as a Virtual Box VM, which emulates the ICH AC97 audio controller.

mpg321 reports 'No default libao driver available'

According to this page the driver for this device can be loaded at boot time by modifying 'loader.conf', but I cannot find any such file on the system

Is the file called something else, or is it something that I need to create from scratch?

Alternatively is there another way I can get the audio drivers installed?

I am getting the same problem with version 10 Server, and also on a non VM machine with the same audio driver

Solution:

Install alsa-oss

sudo apt-get install alsa-oss

Add the user to the audio group

sudo adduser username audio

Log out and log in again

Finally run alsamixer and make sure that the master and PCM controls are not muted

2 Answers

This looks like a good place to start they suggest trying to run the command with sudo.

I did this with mpg321 and it no longer complained about "can't find a suitable libao driver. is device in use" but still no sound from the Virtual Box VM. Same with mplayer, under normal user, runs under sudo but no sound.

Install alsa-oss

sudo apt-get install alsa-oss

Add the user to the audio group

sudo adduser username audio

Log out and log in again

Finally run alsamixer and make sure that the master and PCM controls are not muted