[gentoo-user] Problem with sound card

[gentoo-user] Problem with sound card

[Lavender]

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I have asked the question in gentoo forum , but
it seems that very few people like hanging around
in forums , I didn't get useful method.
My sound card can't work normally , when I use music
player there is no sound .
Someone said that I need low-level codec support , I'm not
sure whether it is. Here is the information in sysfs, I really
hope you can know where the problem is.
 
# ls /sys/class/sound
audio  card0 card1  controlC0  controlC1
dsp  hwC0D0  hwC1D0 mixer  mixer1
pcmC0D0c  pcmC0D0p  pcmC1D3p
seq  sequencer  sequencer2  timer
 
# ls -l /sys/class/sound/card0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 25 03:37 card0 -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.2/sound/card0
 
# ls /sys/class/sound/card0/
audio  controlC0  device  dsp
hwC0D0  id  mixer  number
pcmC0D0c  pcmC0D0p  power
subsystem  uevent
----Regards----
----Lavender----

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Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with sound card

[Albert W. Hopkins]

On Mon, 2011-10-24 at 20:35 +0800, Lavender wrote:
> I have asked the question in gentoo forum , but
> it seems that very few people like hanging around
> in forums , I didn't get useful method.
> My sound card can't work normally , when I use music
> player there is no sound .
> Someone said that I need low-level codec support , I'm not
> sure whether it is. Here is the information in sysfs, I really
> hope you can know where the problem is.
>  
> # ls /sys/class/sound
> audio  card0 card1  controlC0  controlC1
> dsp  hwC0D0  hwC1D0 mixer  mixer1
> pcmC0D0c  pcmC0D0p  pcmC1D3p
> seq  sequencer  sequencer2  timer
>  
> # ls -l /sys/class/sound/card0
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 25 03:37 card0
> -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.2/sound/card0
>  
> # ls /sys/class/sound/card0/
> audio  controlC0  device  dsp
> hwC0D0  id  mixer  number
> pcmC0D0c  pcmC0D0p  power
> subsystem  uevent
> ----Regards----
> ----Lavender----
> 
> 
When you go in into the kernel config, there is the option for Intel
AC97-like sound, which I believe is what the majority of sound cards
use.  For AC97 there are "codecs" in the kernel config.  A safe choice
is to select them all.

The output you gave is not very helpful or informative, but I'll ask
just a few questions/suggestions:

      * Looks like maybe you have 2 sound cards. Are you going through
        the correct card for output?
      * Did you go into alsamixer to verify that the appropriate outputs
        are unmuted?
      * Try "aplay" or "speaker-test" or something else low-level to see
        if even basic output is working.  It could be your sound card is
        fine but you don't have the correct support for whatever music
        player you are using.

Re:Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with sound card

[Lavender]

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>      * Looks like maybe you have 2 sound cards. Are you going through
>        the correct card for output?
It's not like that . I only have one sound card and one HD audio controller,I don't why there are card0 and card1.>      * Did you go into alsamixer to verify that the appropriate outputs
>        are unmuted?Actually there is no alsamixer in my system, I read the <Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide> , there is no alsaconf or alsasound too. 
>      * Try "aplay" or "speaker-test" or something else low-level to see
>        if even basic output is working.  It could be your sound card is
>        fine but you don't have the correct support for whatever music
>        player you are using.I'll try ,  I hope you're right .....

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[gentoo-user] Re: Problem with sound card

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 10/24/2011 04:31 PM, Lavender wrote:
>>            *  Looks  like  maybe  you  have  2  sound  cards.  Are  you  going  through
>>                the  correct  card  for  output?
> It's not like that . I only have one sound card and one HD audio controller,

Er, if you have one sound card and one audio controller, then doesn't 
that make two sound cards? :-/  (One actual sound card (PCI or PCIe) and 
one integrated into the mainboard?)


> I don't why there are card0 and card1.
>
>>            *  Did  you  go  into  alsamixer  to  verify  that  the  appropriate  outputs
>>                are  unmuted?
>
> Actually there is no alsamixer in my system

You didn't install it then.  It's in the "media-sound/alsa-utils" package.

Also, if you want to know which sound drivers you need, look up the 
specs of your mainboard (or post your mainboard's brand and model here.)

Re: Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with sound card

[David Abbott]

2011/10/24 Lavender <lavender_matrix@163.com>:
>>      * Looks like maybe you have 2 sound cards. Are you going through
>>        the correct card for output?
> It's not like that . I only have one sound card and one HD audio controller,
>
> I don't why there are card0 and card1.
>
>>      * Did you go into alsamixer to verify that the appropriate outputs
>>        are unmuted?
>
> Actually there is no alsamixer in my system, I read the
>
> <Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide> , there is no alsaconf or
>
> alsasound too.

You must of missed;
Code Listing 3.1: Install alsa-utils
# emerge alsa-utils

>>      * Try "aplay" or "speaker-test" or something else low-level to see
>>        if even basic output is working.  It could be your sound card is
>>        fine but you don't have the correct support for whatever music
>>        player you are using.
>
> I'll try ,  I hope you're right .....
>
>
HTH
David

Re:[gentoo-user] Re: Problem with sound card

[Lavender]

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>Er, if you have one sound card and one audio controller, then doesn't 
>that make two sound cards? :-/  (One actual sound card (PCI or PCIe) and 
>one integrated into the mainboard?)

Ha, I'm not comprehend with hardware .

>You didn't install it then.  It's in the "media-sound/alsa-utils" package.
>
>Also, if you want to know which sound drivers you need, look up the 
>specs of your mainboard (or post your mainboard's brand and model here.)
>
OK , here is my mainborad information:
Brand and model :   HP 3644
Chip Set:     AMD 760G/780G/780V/785G/790GX/880G/890GX
SN:   CND9501XTP
 
Er, can't I ask why you need this information? If the driver I built is not enough ?

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[gentoo-user] Re:Re: Problem with sound card

[masterprometheus]

Lavender wrote:

>>Er, if you have one sound card and one audio controller, then doesn't
>>that make two sound cards? :-/  (One actual sound card (PCI or PCIe) 
and
>>one integrated into the mainboard?)
> 
> Ha, I'm not comprehend with hardware .

You have two sound cards. One is the onboard sound card, the other is the 
HDMI audio that ATI graphics provides. 

> 
>>You didn't install it then.  It's in the "media-sound/alsa-utils" 
package.
>>
>>Also, if you want to know which sound drivers you need, look up the
>>specs of your mainboard (or post your mainboard's brand and model 
here.)
>>
> OK , here is my mainborad information:
> Brand and model :   HP 3644
> Chip Set:     AMD 760G/780G/780V/785G/790GX/880G/890GX
> SN:   CND9501XTP
>  
> Er, can't I ask why you need this information? If the driver I built is
> not enough ?

You have to have the the correct drivers and alsa-utils emerge.
Good luck

Re:[gentoo-user] Re:Re: Problem with sound card

[Lavender]

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>You have to have the the correct drivers and alsa-utils emerge.
>Good luck

Yeah, I rebuilt my kernel according to documentation which relative
to ALSA . FInally I have configured all of them perfectly , ha,
it's really not easy :-)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re:Re: Problem with sound card

[Mark Knecht]

2011/10/25 Lavender <lavender_matrix@163.com>:
>>You have to have the the correct drivers and alsa-utils emerge.
>>Good luck
> Yeah, I rebuilt my kernel according to documentation which relative
> to ALSA . FInally I have configured all of them perfectly , ha,
> it's really not easy :-)

You should have seen how 'really not easy' ALSA was 10 years ago! ;-)

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Re:Re: Problem with sound card

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:44:45 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:

> > Yeah, I rebuilt my kernel according to documentation which relative
> > to ALSA . FInally I have configured all of them perfectly , ha,
> > it's really not easy :-)  
> 
> You should have seen how 'really not easy' ALSA was 10 years ago! ;-)

No he shouldn't. No one deserves to have that wished upon them :-O


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day;
Teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re:Re: Problem with sound card

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2011/10/25 Lavender <lavender_matrix@163.com>:
>>>You have to have the the correct drivers and alsa-utils emerge.
>>>Good luck
>> Yeah, I rebuilt my kernel according to documentation which relative
>> to ALSA . FInally I have configured all of them perfectly , ha,
>> it's really not easy :-)
>
> You should have seen how 'really not easy' ALSA was 10 years ago! ;-)

Or that commercial linux sound driver package... I don't even remember
what it was called anymore.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re:Re: Problem with sound card

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Paul Hartman
<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2011/10/25 Lavender <lavender_matrix@163.com>:
>>>>You have to have the the correct drivers and alsa-utils emerge.
>>>>Good luck
>>> Yeah, I rebuilt my kernel according to documentation which relative
>>> to ALSA . FInally I have configured all of them perfectly , ha,
>>> it's really not easy :-)
>>
>> You should have seen how 'really not easy' ALSA was 10 years ago! ;-)
>
> Or that commercial linux sound driver package... I don't even remember
> what it was called anymore.

OSS I think - something like Open Sound System or some such other
crazy thing, being it was neither Open nor most of the time for me
produced Sound on my System. ;-)

I think there is still support for it in the kernel. Go figure...

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Re:Re: Problem with sound card

[Michael Mol]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 12:06 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Paul Hartman
> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 2011/10/25 Lavender <lavender_matrix@163.com>:
>>>>>You have to have the the correct drivers and alsa-utils emerge.
>>>>>Good luck
>>>> Yeah, I rebuilt my kernel according to documentation which relative
>>>> to ALSA . FInally I have configured all of them perfectly , ha,
>>>> it's really not easy :-)
>>>
>>> You should have seen how 'really not easy' ALSA was 10 years ago! ;-)
>>
>> Or that commercial linux sound driver package... I don't even remember
>> what it was called anymore.
>
> OSS I think - something like Open Sound System or some such other
> crazy thing, being it was neither Open nor most of the time for me
> produced Sound on my System. ;-)
>
> I think there is still support for it in the kernel. Go figure...

It's only been deprecated for over a decade...I can only barely
remember a time before ALSA was pulled into the mainline kernel. The
original OSS support is still in there. There's also an OSS emulation
layer for ALSA.

The name 'Open Sound System' comes from an era where 'open' normally
meant, "you can buy a license from us to use our system in your
products" and 'closed' meant "no, you can't include a subset of our
product in your product. Your customers can be our customers,
instead." The movements pushed along by ESR and RMS redefined what
'open' and 'proprietary' were taken to mean.

See also 'OpenGL', which is still trademarked, and the owners of the
trademark allow "compatible" implementations to exist.

-- 
:wq

[gentoo-user] Re: Problem with sound card

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 10/25/2011 07:17 PM, Michael Mol wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 12:06 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Paul Hartman
>>> Or that commercial linux sound driver package... I don't even remember
>>> what it was called anymore.
>>
>> OSS I think - something like Open Sound System or some such other
>> crazy thing, being it was neither Open nor most of the time for me
>> produced Sound on my System. ;-)
>>
>> I think there is still support for it in the kernel. Go figure...
>
> It's only been deprecated for over a decade...I can only barely
> remember a time before ALSA was pulled into the mainline kernel.

OSS is the standard sound system for Unix still to this day though. 
Everybody uses it, except Linux.

It's GPL by the way.  I actually use it on my main PC ;-)  On supported 
sound cards, it works much better than ALSA.  Not the version in the 
kernel, of course, that one is deprecated.  The newest version is v4 and 
is only available out-of-kernel.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Problem with sound card

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> On 10/25/2011 07:17 PM, Michael Mol wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 12:06 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com>
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Paul Hartman
>>>>
>>>> Or that commercial linux sound driver package... I don't even remember
>>>> what it was called anymore.
>>>
>>> OSS I think - something like Open Sound System or some such other
>>> crazy thing, being it was neither Open nor most of the time for me
>>> produced Sound on my System. ;-)
>>>
>>> I think there is still support for it in the kernel. Go figure...
>>
>> It's only been deprecated for over a decade...I can only barely
>> remember a time before ALSA was pulled into the mainline kernel.
>
> OSS is the standard sound system for Unix still to this day though.
> Everybody uses it, except Linux.
>
> It's GPL by the way.  I actually use it on my main PC ;-)  On supported
> sound cards, it works much better than ALSA.  Not the version in the kernel,
> of course, that one is deprecated.  The newest version is v4 and is only
> available out-of-kernel.

I imagine that it's support for the cards it supported in that time
period was probably better than ALSA. I came to Linux looking for a
platform to replace Windows to support Avid's ProTools. As I soon
learned that wasn't going to happen, at least not soon, and it hasn't
changed in the 10-15 years I've been using Linux. However in those
days my need for ALSA was driven by OSS not supporting any sound card
hardware that was of interest to people recording music. ALSA was at
least trying, and has gotten much better over the years with things
like Jack and rt-sources which easily outperforms Windows in terms of
latency.

- Mark

[gentoo-user] Re: Problem with sound card

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 10/25/2011 08:11 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Nikos Chantziaras<realnc@arcor.de>  wrote:
>> On 10/25/2011 07:17 PM, Michael Mol wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 12:06 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com>
>>>   wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Paul Hartman
>>>>>
>>>>> Or that commercial linux sound driver package... I don't even remember
>>>>> what it was called anymore.
>>>>
>>>> OSS I think - something like Open Sound System or some such other
>>>> crazy thing, being it was neither Open nor most of the time for me
>>>> produced Sound on my System. ;-)
>>>>
>>>> I think there is still support for it in the kernel. Go figure...
>>>
>>> It's only been deprecated for over a decade...I can only barely
>>> remember a time before ALSA was pulled into the mainline kernel.
>>
>> OSS is the standard sound system for Unix still to this day though.
>> Everybody uses it, except Linux.
>>
>> It's GPL by the way.  I actually use it on my main PC ;-)  On supported
>> sound cards, it works much better than ALSA.  Not the version in the kernel,
>> of course, that one is deprecated.  The newest version is v4 and is only
>> available out-of-kernel.
>
> I imagine that it's support for the cards it supported in that time
> period was probably better than ALSA. I came to Linux looking for a
> platform to replace Windows to support Avid's ProTools. As I soon
> learned that wasn't going to happen, at least not soon, and it hasn't
> changed in the 10-15 years I've been using Linux. However in those
> days my need for ALSA was driven by OSS not supporting any sound card
> hardware that was of interest to people recording music. ALSA was at
> least trying, and has gotten much better over the years with things
> like Jack and rt-sources which easily outperforms Windows in terms of
> latency.

That's true.  Though I judge by desktop needs on my machine.  The lack 
of a per-application volume mixer in ALSA is really frustrating.  And if 
you bark about it, you're told to install PulseAudio, which is another 
can of worms entirely :-/  I guess I'm gonna be using OSSv4 for as long 
as that old Soundblaster Live I have here refuses to die.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Problem with sound card

[Michael Mol]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 1:35 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> On 10/25/2011 08:11 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Nikos Chantziaras<realnc@arcor.de>
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> On 10/25/2011 07:17 PM, Michael Mol wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 12:06 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com>
>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Paul Hartman
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Or that commercial linux sound driver package... I don't even remember
>>>>>> what it was called anymore.
>>>>>
>>>>> OSS I think - something like Open Sound System or some such other
>>>>> crazy thing, being it was neither Open nor most of the time for me
>>>>> produced Sound on my System. ;-)
>>>>>
>>>>> I think there is still support for it in the kernel. Go figure...
>>>>
>>>> It's only been deprecated for over a decade...I can only barely
>>>> remember a time before ALSA was pulled into the mainline kernel.
>>>
>>> OSS is the standard sound system for Unix still to this day though.
>>> Everybody uses it, except Linux.
>>>
>>> It's GPL by the way.  I actually use it on my main PC ;-)  On supported
>>> sound cards, it works much better than ALSA.  Not the version in the
>>> kernel,
>>> of course, that one is deprecated.  The newest version is v4 and is only
>>> available out-of-kernel.
>>
>> I imagine that it's support for the cards it supported in that time
>> period was probably better than ALSA. I came to Linux looking for a
>> platform to replace Windows to support Avid's ProTools. As I soon
>> learned that wasn't going to happen, at least not soon, and it hasn't
>> changed in the 10-15 years I've been using Linux. However in those
>> days my need for ALSA was driven by OSS not supporting any sound card
>> hardware that was of interest to people recording music. ALSA was at
>> least trying, and has gotten much better over the years with things
>> like Jack and rt-sources which easily outperforms Windows in terms of
>> latency.
>
> That's true.  Though I judge by desktop needs on my machine.  The lack of a
> per-application volume mixer in ALSA is really frustrating.  And if you bark
> about it, you're told to install PulseAudio, which is another can of worms
> entirely :-/  I guess I'm gonna be using OSSv4 for as long as that old
> Soundblaster Live I have here refuses to die.

Agreed; per-app volume controls are nice. The Linux-specific nature of
ALSA isn't such a good thing. Though if ALSA implements an OSSv4
wrapper, that's not so bad. (Not that I think they're likely to; if
the wrapper exposes more functionality than their core supports, it'll
greatly complicate their architecture.)

I also kinda miss being able to test audio with cat. I have a t-shirt
somewhere which says "cat /boot/vmlinux > /dev/audio # The sound of
Linux". That was my quote for my high school's Science Olympiad team
T-shirt. Being able to record audio files using the reverse was also
very convenient, as was testing microphone settings by dumping the
device to the terminal.

-- 
:wq