alsaconf for Fedora

[stan]

Ric Moore wrote:
> Is there any particular reason that alsaconf is not included in Fedora?
> If it works and it's simple, I'd like to see it. I'm getting a blooming
> headache reading the "howtos" to set up 6 channel sound. I've used
> kasound in the past and it worked well. Now, it's not doing the trick
> for whatever reason. Setting up speakers shouldn't be a weekend's worth
> of work, if there is a nice gentle-to-the-user gui out there. Thanx! Ric
>
>   
I can't speak to why alsaconf is not included.  But if your sound card 
supports
5.1, alsa should already have created a shortcut to use it.  At a 
command line
run aplay -lLv.  If you see something in the output that looks like 
surround51,
that means that is the device you have to use to play 5.1.

In your home directory, create a file called .asoundrc.  In that file 
put this
code.

pcm.!default {
  surround51
}
ctl.!default {
  surround51
}

This should make surround 5.1 your default sound configuration.  You can 
test this
by running

aplay -D default some.wav

Sound should come from all speakers.

You can test whether surround51 is defined by running

aplay -D surround51 some.wav

Here is the link I consulted for this:  
http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Asoundrc

I haven't tested this, so I don't know that it works.  In particular, 
I'm not sure of the syntax
to make surround51 the default above, though it should be correct.  
Anyhow, it is easy to
test, and if it doesn't work, no harm done.