I think I need a sound/ALSA guru.
William Case
billlinux at rogers.com
Tue Aug 2 14:49:22 UTC 2005
Hi;
I am re-sending this message; I sent it yesterday but it didn't appear
in the fedora-list. Somehow it got lost int he ether,
By the way, a couple of interesting things happened yesterday evening.
My distortion got fixed -- I think and Bugzilla sent me an update/fixed
message. I am going to check them both out now.
Thanks for responding.
On Mon, 2005-08-01 at 13:05 -0400, fedora-list-request at redhat.com wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2005-08-01 at 16:52 +0200, Alexander Dalloz wrote:
> > Am Mo, den 01.08.2005 schrieb William Case um 16:09:
> >
> > > I have posted here a couple of times with sound problems and
> received no
> > > reply.
> I may be wrong but I think my sound problems are basically
> >
> > That isn't really true - Bob Chiodini answered you on 22th July.
> >
At the risk of appearing too defencive, I tacked a message onto a
message by Joe(theWordy)Philbrook on 7/22/05 and Bob Chiodini quite
properly replied to that problem.
I have tried to get help from my local LUG. A couple of people gave me
some of their time but we got nowhere. The intent of todays message was
not accusatory, but an effort to find out if I had been going about
trying to solve this problem all wrong. If someone can give me some
help no one will be more delighted than I.
> > > installation problems and I also think they are 2 or 3 different
> > > problems intermixed. I have been working on this problem for over
> 6
> > > weeks and don't seem to be any closer to a solution than when I
> started.
> >
> > To repeat information from fist posting: we are talking about an
> Fedora Core 4 system.
My system is Fedora Core 4_i386 2.6.12-1.1398_FC4
> >
> > > My problems are:
> > > 1) My event sounds all have scratchy or hissy backgrounds
> > > 2) My /dev/*(sound) permissions seem all screwed up
> >
> > You have to be specific about this. List the permissions.
> >
> > ls -al /dev/dsp* /dev/audio* /dev/mixer*
~]$ ls -al /dev/dsp /dev/audio /dev/mixer
crw------- 1 bill root 14, 4 Jul 31 04:07 /dev/audio
crw------- 1 bill root 14, 3 Jul 31 04:07 /dev/dsp
crw------- 1 bill root 14, 0 Jul 31 04:07 /dev/mixer
I get the above as user and as su -
When I log into root account I get the following:
root ~]# ls -al /dev/dsp /dev/audio /dev/mixer
crw------- 1 root root 14, 4 Jul 31 04:07 /dev/audio
crw------- 1 root root 14, 3 Jul 31 04:07 /dev/dsp
crw------- 1 root root 14, 0 Jul 31 04:07 /dev/mixer
The 'root' info may not be relevant; but it seemed to concern my LUG
help.
>
> > > 3) All the modules seem to be there (except one for synthesizer??
> -- > > which is required in WindowsXP)
The synthesizer question is mine because my Windows XP set up works
perfectly with the following settings:
WindowsXP
Vol Control: 40%
Wave: 40%
SW Synth: 95%
Line-in: Mute
CD Audio: 50%
While /proc/asound/oss/sndstat shows
Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG
> >
> > Please show us the list of loaded modules.
See at bottom
> >
> > > 4) Most but not all of my sound programs can't find my sound card.
> >
> >Which programs are that? Do they work with ALSA or do they need OSS
> > emulation by ALSA?
a) Helix seems to work
b) as user audacity returns "There was an error intializing the audio
i/o layer. You will not be able to play or record audio." As root
audacity starts without error dialogue but the sound playback is very
distorted.
c)Multimedia Systems Selector (Audio) i.e. gstreamer properties
Output ALSA alsasink clear sound
Artsd artsdsink no sound
ESD esdsink sound (tremble/faint)
OSS ossink failed test pipeline
Input ALSA alsasrc crashed/forced quit
ESD esdmon no sound
OSS osssrc failed test pipeline
d) CD player - plays. It is hard to tell whether it is distorted or
not. The only disk I have handy is bagpipe music.
e) tvtime (see below)
f) General strangeness: As user I still get event sounds after I have
muted everything in
alsamixer - volume control. Even stranger, if I go to /usr/share/sounds
in File Browser and just focus the cursor (i.e. don't click or select in
any way) on a *.wav
event file I get the sound in spite of everything being muted and the
files being owned by root (other is set to r).
As root user I don't get sounds being played on focus, but I do get
sound through Helix even though everything is muted.
In both cases the sound has background distortion, which is the main
problem I started out trying to solve.
> >
> > > 5) tvtime switches to 'line-in' even though it is set for PCM.
> >
> > I don't use tvtime. How do you face the switch?
/etc/tvtime/tvtime.xml
<!--
This sets the mixer device and channel to use. The format is device
name:channel name. Valid channels are:
vol, bass, treble, synth, pcm, speaker, line, mic, cd, mix, pcm2,
rec, igain, ogain, line1, line2, line3, dig1, dig2, dig3, phin,
phout, video, radio, monitor
-->
<option name="MixerDevice" value="/dev/mixer:line"/>
It is currently set to line for line-in, but previously I had it set to
pcm or pcm2 (experimenting with both).
> >
> > > 6) system-config-soundcard plays the test sample but has the worst
> > > distortion of all.
> > > 7) and more and more .....
> >
> > and more questions ...
> >
> > > I have googled, checked the ALSA site, checked all the Fedora
> (including
> > > bugzilla) and Linux sites I can find. I have noticed several
> posted
> > > ALSA problems similar to mine but seldom any posted solutions.
> > >
> > > I have reams of data from lsmode, /dev/*, /proc/,
> PAM, /boot/config-2.6
> > > etc. that I will share if anyone thinks they can help.
> >
> > As long as you use Fedora Core 4 and no custom kernel or anything
> else
> > not shipped with Fedora we don't need a kernel configuration file or
> PAM
> > data.
> > You have a fully up to date FC4 with all updates installed?
> >
Yes see above. Installed immeadiately on release. I don't believe
there have been any kernel releases since *.1398. All programs are from
Fedora.iso; all upgrades are through up2date originally and recently
yum. I try to stay as current as possible.
> > > I am using P4 on a Intel 82850 motherboard, Ensoniq 5889 AudioPCI
> sound
> > > card using the snd_ens1371 driver and an ATI TV Wonder tuner. Also
> > > listed is Brooktree Bt878 video capture and Bt878 audio capture.
> My
> > > Linux is Fedora Core 4.
> >
> > /sbin/lspci and /sbin/lsmod output would be good to see.
~]$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82850 850 (Tehama) Chipset Host
Bridge (MCH) (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82850 850 (Tehama) Chipset AGP
Bridge (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801BA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801BA IDE U100 (rev 02)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM USB (Hub #1) (rev
02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM SMBus (rev 02)
00:1f.4 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM USB (Hub #2) (rev
02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage 128 SM/4x
AGP 4x
02:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
02:0b.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video
Capture (rev 11)
02:0b.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture
(rev 11)
02:0d.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 02)
]$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
snd_seq_midi 8929 0
r128 46401 1
drm 70101 2 r128
parport_pc 28933 1
lp 13001 0
parport 40585 2 parport_pc,lp
autofs4 29253 2
sunrpc 167813 1
ipt_REJECT 5569 1
ipt_state 1857 1
ip_conntrack 41497 1 ipt_state
iptable_filter 2881 1
ip_tables 19393 3 ipt_REJECT,ipt_state,iptable_filter
dm_mod 58101 0
video 15941 0
button 6609 0
battery 9413 0
ac 4805 0
usblp 13121 0
md5 4033 1
ipv6 267841 10
uhci_hcd 35153 0
bt878 10457 0
tuner 27121 0
bttv 161521 1 bt878
video_buf 23749 1 bttv
i2c_algo_bit 9289 1 bttv
v4l2_common 5825 1 bttv
btcx_risc 4937 1 bttv
tveeprom 13017 1 bttv
videodev 9537 1 bttv
shpchp 94405 0
i2c_i801 8781 0
i2c_core 21569 5
tuner,bttv,i2c_algo_bit,tveeprom,i2c_i801
snd_ens1371 31649 1
gameport 18633 1 snd_ens1371
snd_rawmidi 30305 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_ens1371
snd_ac97_codec 75961 1 snd_ens1371
snd_seq_dummy 3653 0
snd_seq_oss 37057 0
snd_seq_midi_event 9153 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 62289 6
snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 8781 5
snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 51185 0
snd_mixer_oss 17857 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 100169 3 snd_ens1371,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer 33605 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 57157 12
snd_ens1371,snd_rawmidi,snd_ac97_codec,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 10913 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 9669 1 snd_pcm
8139too 30017 0
mii 5441 1 8139too
floppy 65141 0
ext3 132681 3
jbd 86233 1 ext3
>
> I went back and reread your previous posts on your sound problems.
> Even
> though I'm currently running FC3, I've seen an issue where my TV card,
> which has a mixer, seems to interfere with the configuration of ALSA
> for
> the motherboard sound devices. The edits to asound.conf fixed this
> problem for me. You stated that the your edits to asound.conf keep
> reverting back to the old values. As a data point, it would be good
> to
> know what the old and new values were/are. In my case the zeroes
> changed to ones and I manually changed them back.
Current and always /etc/asound.conf
# Generated by system-config-soundcard, do not edit by hand
defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.ctl.card 0
Recommended by RH/fedora bugzilla:
Remove all lines from /etc/asound.conf and write there:
pcm.!default { type hw card 0 }
ctl.!default { type hw card 0 }
This keeps changing back. I also had another recommended configuration
that came from the ALSA site however I can't find it just now but I will
look for it. I usually keep a record of such things.
> The result of the
> zeroes changing to ones was evident in alsamixer. The only control I
> saw was the TV card's volume (IIRC). What do you see when you run
> alsamixer? Alsamixer reflects exactly the gnome-volume-control.
amixer returns the following:
~]$ amixer
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 23 [74%] [on]
Front Right: Playback 23 [74%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Master Mono',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono: Playback 0 [0%] [off]
Simple mixer control '3D Control - Switch',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control '3D Control Sigmatel - Depth',0
Capabilities: volume volume-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Limits: 0 - 3
Mono: 0 [0%]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 23 [74%] [on]
Front Right: Playback 23 [74%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Line',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [off] Capture [on]
Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [off] Capture [on]
Simple mixer control 'CD',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [off] Capture [off]
Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [off] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch
cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Mono
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono: Playback 23 [74%] [off]
Front Left: Capture [off]
Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost (+20dB)',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Select',0
Capabilities:
Mono:
Simple mixer control 'Video',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [on] Capture [off]
Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Phone',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch
cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Mono
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono: Playback 0 [0%] [off]
Front Left: Capture [off]
Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'PC Speaker',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Limits: Playback 0 - 15
Mono: Playback 0 [0%] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Aux',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [off] Capture [off]
Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [off] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mono Output Select',0
Capabilities:
Mono:
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch cswitch-joined
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 15
Front Left: Capture 0 [0%] [off]
Front Right: Capture 0 [0%] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mix',0
Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Front Left: Capture [off]
Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mix Mono',0
Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Front Left: Capture [off]
Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'External Amplifier',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control 'Sigmatel 4-Speaker Stereo',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control 'Sigmatel Surround Phase Inversion Playback ',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]
This my current setup have tried everything with all controls muted.
> For the record: Please post your /etc/modprobe.conf, and tell us
> which
> applications generate sounds and which don't and any error messages
> they
> produce.
>
/etc/modprobe.conf
alias eth0 8139too
options bttv tuner=2
Neither should be connected to sound. eth0 is my ethernet card and bttv
tunner=2 is supposed to be a video correction for Canadian cable.
> Also from one of the previous posts, your permissions look okay
> for /dev/audio /dev/dsp /dev/mixer.
see above setup and strangeness
> I am running FC3 as opposed to FC4, so some things may have been
> updated. Here are a couple of things to try:
>
> 1. Run /usr/bin/gst-register. This fixed a problem for me where all
> of
> the mixer(s) disappeared.
>
Tried gst-register at least three times.
> 2. Remove the TV Card, reboot and let kudzu correct modprobe.conf.
> Save your modprobe.conf, if step 2 fixes anything, before reinstalling
> your TV card.
>
Oh? OK, I'll try it.
> These are the pertinent entries in my modprobe.conf (an Intel sound
> device):
>
> alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
> options snd-card-0 index=0
> install snd-intel8x0 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-intel8x0
> && /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
> remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1
> || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0
>
> I can't really say anything to your distortion issues, but possibly
> getting the mixer issues under control may help.
I am sure that is true. Except the synth question keeps bugging me.
>
> Bob...
>
Regards Bill
More information about the fedora-list
mailing list