Enable Sound on Guest WinXP (Not RDP)

treken

New Member
Mar 22, 2011
4
0
1
Hi Folks

I have a server with Proxmox installed.
2 Guests - 1 running Smoothwall, 1 Running Windows XP
The XP 'machine' previously was a physical machine that played audio from iTunes to my audio system.

I cannot find any starting point to get the XP in KVM to find / install audio drivers to output sound from the audio card output. Is this even possible?

Thanks
 
Add the args line in your /etc/qemu-server/<vm id>.conf file should give you sound:

args: -soundhw
On my Proxmox VE 1.8, I have several virtual audio devices available. I've had the best luck with ac97

red:/etc/qemu-server# kvm -soundhw '?'
Valid sound card names (comma separated):
pcspk PC speaker
sb16 Creative Sound Blaster 16
ac97 Intel 82801AA AC97 Audio
es1370 ENSONIQ AudioPCI ES1370
hda Intel HD Audio

-soundhw all will enable all of the above
 
Thanks for the reply jfroebe

I have done as suggested, however I have not been able to get audio from the machine. The system installed the device but still no sound.

The Hardware is a Gigabyte GA I945P PRO with onboard sound, 6 connectors at the rear as well as Optical/Co-ax digital sound op.

ac97 is what I used, though I tried all other except PC Speaker

Some data
********************
proxmox:~# kvm -soundhw '?'
Valid sound card names (comma separated):
pcspk PC speaker
sb16 Creative Sound Blaster 16
ac97 Intel 82801AA AC97 Audio
es1370 ENSONIQ AudioPCI ES1370

-soundhw all will enable all of the above
******************

Config file is
*****************

name: Mediarack
ide2: cdrom,media=cdrom
vlan0: virtio=7A:05:18:17:01:32
bootdisk: ide0
ostype: wxp
memory: 2048
sockets: 1
boot: dc
freeze: 0
cpuunits: 1000
acpi: 1
kvm: 1
onboot: 1
cores: 2
ide0: SATA1:101/vm-101-disk-1.raw
args: -soundhw ac97
*********************

I can only assume that these options dont work with my onboard hardware....
maybe I will hunt down a pci sound device that is compatible and diable the onboard audio
 
Is it possible that proxmox doesn't come with audio drivers, or doesn't install/unmute them by default? It's primarily intended as a server platform, and servers generally don't have soundcards...

Might be worth checking that the sound support works on the underlying system before worrying about making it work in a VM? There's some pretty good linux media center apps around too unless all your music is locked into drm'd formats.

Also take a look at http://mafipulation.org/blagoblig/2011/04/08 - should let you emulate an apple airtunes
 
Hi Bert64 ... thanks for your input.

The system previously was running WinXP with Smoothwall in a VirtualBox container. Not very efficient and requiring loss of Net connectivity when XP did various updates (Reboot).
Audio was operational via all outputs. All were actually in use. I rather bravely chose to install Proxmox and now have 4 VMs on this Proxmox.
1 x Smoothwall
1 x Win XP - to serve music via iTunes (controllable via ipod, ipad, iphone remote)
1 x Turnkey File Server (Ubuntu)
1 x Win XP running CBUS & ELK software for building management control.

I have found that an external USB drive formatted NTFS directly connected to the iTunes/XP machine was s.l.o.w
This is why I made the external disk ext3 and shared it via Samba to the itunes machine... not perfect but better.

I would still like to solve the audio issue with XP in KVM, but I have since started deploying Airport Express devices around the home (thanks ebay) to deliver the music via LAN.

Do you know if there is any Linux music library software that supports iTunes remotes?
I can only assume that since there are args: for audio for the xxx.conf for KVM that audio will operate on a Proxmox KVM.
 
There is audio support within KVM, however it requires that the underlying linux system its running on have fully configured audio support... Proxmox being a server platform, makes no effort to configure audio by default.

What i suspect, is that your proxmox install is not configured to use the audio hardware... You will probably need to install the alsa support packages, enable the audio drivers and unmute the audio (they will be muted by default)... Install mpg123 or something to test playback of an mp3 file, and once audio is working on the linux side then kvm should be able to make use of it.

There are a number of linux audio players which support airtunes, take a look at: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/apples-airtunes-ubuntulinux/ or do a quick google search
 
Awesome .... thanks bert64

I get it now ... will give it a go and report back how I go.

It may be obvious to some, but I just assumed that the audio system would be enabled since support was indicated (like other sub-systems).

cheers :)
 

About

The Proxmox community has been around for many years and offers help and support for Proxmox VE, Proxmox Backup Server, and Proxmox Mail Gateway.
We think our community is one of the best thanks to people like you!

Get your subscription!

The Proxmox team works very hard to make sure you are running the best software and getting stable updates and security enhancements, as well as quick enterprise support. Tens of thousands of happy customers have a Proxmox subscription. Get yours easily in our online shop.

Buy now!