[gentoo-user] Sorting soundcards...

[gentoo-user] Sorting soundcards...

[meino.cramer]

Hi,

With my PC I have three "soundcards" (from the Alsa point of view),
which are:

    0 [SB             ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI SB
                      HDA ATI SB at 0xfcaf8000 irq 16
    1 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                         HDA NVidia at 0xfe97c000 irq 25
    2 [CameraB404271  ]: USB-Audio - USB Camera-B4.04.27.1
                      OmniVision Technologies, Inc. USB Camera-B4.04.27.1 at usb-0000:00:12.2-3, high

. To prevent, that they come up in any possible kind of sorting after
a reboot, I wrote into /etc/modporbe.d/alsa.conf:

    # Alsa kernel modules' configuration file.
    # ALSA portion
    # OSS/Free portion
    
    ##
    ## IMPORTANT:
    ## You need to customise this section for your specific sound card(s)
    ## and then run `update-modules' command.
    ## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.
    ##
    
    alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
    alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
    alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
    
    alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
    alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
    alias snd-card-1 snd-usb-intel
    alias sound-slot-1 snd-usb-intel
    alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
    alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel

, but that did not help (I did a update-modules before reboot).

How can I urge the "soundcards" into a specific order?
How can I more specific than specifying "snd-hda-intel" since
this appears twice...?

Thank you very much in advance for any help! :)

Have a nice weekend!
Best regardsm
mcc

Re: [gentoo-user] Sorting soundcards...

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 5:39 PM,  <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> How can I urge the "soundcards" into a specific order?
> How can I more specific than specifying "snd-hda-intel" since
> this appears twice...?

Oh, I love when someone asks a question that I already had to solve
for myself. :)

I also have 2 intel-hda devices and 1 usb-audio. If you read the ALSA
documentation in the kernel, you'll find that the "index" option is
how you determine the card order. But, like you realized, when you
have more than one of the same type, how do you do that?

The answer is that you can define multiple devices in one entry,
separated by comma. You can also specify vendor ID/product ID so it
knows which piece of hardware you are talking about.

options snd-intel-hda model=intel-x58,auto enable_msi=1,0 index=0,1
vid=0x8086,0x10de pid=0x3a3e,0x0be4
options snd-usb-audio index=2

To explain the first line:

options snd-intel-hda
- This part is obvious.

model=intel-x58,auto
- For the first card, I specify the model is intel-x58. That way it
shows me the proper inputs and outputs. For the second card (my Nvidia
HDMI) I set it to auto-detect.

enable_msi=1,0
- I want to enable MSI for my on-board sound, but disable it for my
Nvidia HDMI sound.

index=0,1
- My first card is index 0, second is index 1. That way my on-board is
always first.

vid=0x8086,0x10de
pid=0x3a3e,0x0be4
- Now this is the magical part :) By using vendor and product ID, it
knows which exact hardware I'm talking about in the previous options.

For your case, maybe you don't care about setting the model or the
MSI, you can leave that out. But the real important part to solve your
problem is to set the index and the vid/pid.

> Thank you very much in advance for any help! :)

I hope I helped!

Re: [gentoo-user] Sorting soundcards...

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 3:39 PM,  <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> With my PC I have three "soundcards" (from the Alsa point of view),
> which are:
>
>    0 [SB             ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI SB
>                      HDA ATI SB at 0xfcaf8000 irq 16
>    1 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
>                         HDA NVidia at 0xfe97c000 irq 25
>    2 [CameraB404271  ]: USB-Audio - USB Camera-B4.04.27.1
>                      OmniVision Technologies, Inc. USB Camera-B4.04.27.1 at usb-0000:00:12.2-3, high
>
> . To prevent, that they come up in any possible kind of sorting after
> a reboot, I wrote into /etc/modporbe.d/alsa.conf:
>
>    # Alsa kernel modules' configuration file.
>    # ALSA portion
>    # OSS/Free portion
>
>    ##
>    ## IMPORTANT:
>    ## You need to customise this section for your specific sound card(s)
>    ## and then run `update-modules' command.
>    ## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.
>    ##
>
>    alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
>    alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
>    alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
>
>    alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
>    alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
>    alias snd-card-1 snd-usb-intel
>    alias sound-slot-1 snd-usb-intel
>    alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
>    alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
>
> , but that did not help (I did a update-modules before reboot).
>
> How can I urge the "soundcards" into a specific order?
> How can I more specific than specifying "snd-hda-intel" since
> this appears twice...?
>
> Thank you very much in advance for any help! :)
>
> Have a nice weekend!
> Best regardsm
> mcc
>
>
>
Please check the two sections at the Alsa Wiki for some suggestions to
your problems

http://alsa.opensrc.org/MultipleCards

For card ordering, look at the "The newer "slots=" method" entry.

For multiple cards using the same driver look at "Ordering multiple
cards of the same type" where basically you give it specifics about
each piece of hardware.

HTH,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Sorting soundcards...

[meino.cramer]

Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> [11-06-11 01:08]:
> On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 5:39 PM,  <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> > How can I urge the "soundcards" into a specific order?
> > How can I more specific than specifying "snd-hda-intel" since
> > this appears twice...?
> 
> Oh, I love when someone asks a question that I already had to solve
> for myself. :)
> 
> I also have 2 intel-hda devices and 1 usb-audio. If you read the ALSA
> documentation in the kernel, you'll find that the "index" option is
> how you determine the card order. But, like you realized, when you
> have more than one of the same type, how do you do that?
> 
> The answer is that you can define multiple devices in one entry,
> separated by comma. You can also specify vendor ID/product ID so it
> knows which piece of hardware you are talking about.
> 
> options snd-intel-hda model=intel-x58,auto enable_msi=1,0 index=0,1
> vid=0x8086,0x10de pid=0x3a3e,0x0be4
> options snd-usb-audio index=2
> 
> To explain the first line:
> 
> options snd-intel-hda
> - This part is obvious.
> 
> model=intel-x58,auto
> - For the first card, I specify the model is intel-x58. That way it
> shows me the proper inputs and outputs. For the second card (my Nvidia
> HDMI) I set it to auto-detect.
> 
> enable_msi=1,0
> - I want to enable MSI for my on-board sound, but disable it for my
> Nvidia HDMI sound.
> 
> index=0,1
> - My first card is index 0, second is index 1. That way my on-board is
> always first.
> 
> vid=0x8086,0x10de
> pid=0x3a3e,0x0be4
> - Now this is the magical part :) By using vendor and product ID, it
> knows which exact hardware I'm talking about in the previous options.
> 
> For your case, maybe you don't care about setting the model or the
> MSI, you can leave that out. But the real important part to solve your
> problem is to set the index and the vid/pid.
> 
> > Thank you very much in advance for any help! :)
> 
> I hope I helped!
> 

Hi Paul,

thank you for your quick response! :))

short question before starting a new adventure :)

Did specify this in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf or in
/etc/conf.d/modules (I am asking due to the "option" keyword...)

Do you use udev?

...will start the new audio adventure next morning ... its
to late to keep my eyes open...

Best regards,
mcc

Re: [gentoo-user] Sorting soundcards...

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 6:25 PM,  <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> short question before starting a new adventure :)
>
> Did specify this in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf or in
> /etc/conf.d/modules (I am asking due to the "option" keyword...)

in /etc/modprobe.d/

> Do you use udev?

Yes, but I don't have any special udev rules for sound.

> ...will start the new audio adventure next morning ... its
> to late to keep my eyes open...

Good luck!

Re: [gentoo-user] Sorting soundcards...

[meino.cramer]

Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> [11-06-11 05:08]:
> On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 6:25 PM,  <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> > short question before starting a new adventure :)
> >
> > Did specify this in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf or in
> > /etc/conf.d/modules (I am asking due to the "option" keyword...)
> 
> in /etc/modprobe.d/
> 
> > Do you use udev?
> 
> Yes, but I don't have any special udev rules for sound.
> 
> > ...will start the new audio adventure next morning ... its
> > to late to keep my eyes open...
> 
> Good luck!
> 

Hi Paul,

it seems that snd-hda-intel no longer supports vid= and pid=, since
there messages "unknown parameter" in the bootlog.
Also I dont find any product ids when grepping in /sys/.
or with lspci -vv.
I am using Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24. 
on a vanilla linux 2.6.39.1 kernel...

Am I lost again here...? 

Thank you very much in advance for any help! :)

Best regards
mcc

Re: [gentoo-user] Sorting soundcards...

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 10:49 PM,  <meino.cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> it seems that snd-hda-intel no longer supports vid= and pid=, since
> there messages "unknown parameter" in the bootlog.
> Also I dont find any product ids when grepping in /sys/.
> or with lspci -vv.
> I am using Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
> on a vanilla linux 2.6.39.1 kernel...

Hmm, it's strange because I'm using the same kernel exactly, but don't
have any error. I think you're correct that vid/pid options don't
exist for hda-intel. Maybe it's only a coincidence that it ever worked
for me in the correct order. Keeping USB from becoming first was the
biggest problem for me. Anyway, to get the  VID/PID you could use
lspci with the "-nn" option to show both name and numeric form. But
that does not matter now. :)

I think the correct option for HDA module (instead of vid/pid) is "id"
which is a text identifier. To get the ID of your card, you can do
like follows, and hope they are different... I don't know what you can
do if they are both the same.

$ cat /proc/asound/card0/id
Intel
$ cat /proc/asound/card1/id
NVidia

So in my case, one card is called "Intel" and other is "NVidia". I
think I will change my modprobe options to be like this instead:

options snd-intel-hda model=intel-x58,auto enable_msi=1,0 index=0,1
id=Intel,NVidia
options snd-usb-audio index=2

(I did not try it yet)

Hopefully that method can work for you, too.

Otherwise, udev rules /should/ be the last way to determine the order,
but I have not done that.