alsa sound irritations

TheNagus · n00b Joined: 08 Nov 2002 Posts: 4

Hi,
I have problems with my sound config in some programs.
I use alsa for my DMX Fire and it is working with xmms and xine - but it's not working in mplayer and the UT2003-Demo! I tried various things but somehow I think I have a certain lack of understanding how this sound-thing works in general. I checked mixer setting with alsamixer and it seems to be ok. UT2003 gives me no clue at all but mplayer is complaining at startup:

[code]
alsa-init: testing and bugreports are welcome.
alsa-init: requested format: 48000 Hz, 2 channels, Signed 16-bit (Little-Endian)alsa-init: 1 soundcard found, using: hw:0,0
alsa-init: unable to set periodsize: Invalid argument
couldn't open/init audio device -> no sound
Audio: no sound!!!
[/code]

What am I missing ? I guess the programs I mentioned use different logical devices and some of the I got others I don't - but thats guessing
:roll:

Can someone give me or point me to a short explanation (I followed the Alsa Guide to setup my soundcard ...) what is wrong (or am I doing wrong :wink:

)

TIA,
Heinz

BonezTheGoon · Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 6:58 pm Post subject:

Have you tried the alsa-oss ebuild which adds oss compatibility to alsa? I know some applications will not work without oss compatibility. Just a start, although I am personally a little unclear on just exactly how to get full oss compatibility with ALSA.

Anyone know how to get the best (most complete) oss compatibility with ALSA?

Regards,
BonezTheGoon

TheNagus · n00b Joined: 08 Nov 2002 Posts: 4

Thx BonezTheGoon !!!!

Emerging alsa-oss did the trick with both mplayer and UT2003 ! Only the gnome mixer has something to complain about but thats a minor issue at the moment :wink:

I thought alsa was a replacement for oss - maybe thats still true and the alsa-oss module just adds a sort of compatibility layer above to enable access for programs who are oss-only ? But with that in mind, what is the -ao alsa9 option in mplayer good for ? Is it only working for some cards or did I miss some option when emerging mplayer ?
Just curios and hoping to learn how to 'fish' myself :wink:

I'm really happy it's working for now so thx again and have a nice weekend.
Regards,
Heinz

BonezTheGoon · Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2002 12:21 am Post subject:

Honestly Linux audio is a huge mystery to me. I'm glad that did the trick this time. Yes ALSA is a "replacement" for OSS, however, like you concluded the alsa-oss adds another compatibility layer for apps that don't know how to talk to ALSA and do know how to talk to OSS. Unfortunately this does not appear to be perfect (then again what is?) and can fall apart in some cases. If an application supports ALSA and you have enabled the 'alsa' USE variable then I think it *SHOULD* work, but that's just a nice thought. In my experience I just tinker and theorize until I get it working--then like you have done just now, try to learn something from how I got it working. Unfortunately I still am very confused often times about Linux audio. I think things will get better now as more apps are made ALSA-aware instead of the legacy OSS. But what do I know, maybe the developers still prefer OSS to ALSA and this is why UT2K3 uses it still. Anyway, thanks for posting your good results for others to find (if they bother to search) when they are experiencing similar problems!

I'm still very open to someone who is a Linux-Audio-Uber-God to explain exactly how to this ALSA-to-OSS relationship is supposed to work-- && --How to reliably get audio from my applications. At this point in time I think there is an issue with my ALSA driver for my specific card that is holding me back. I have finally broken down and purchased a real card that I hope will make my life easier.

Regards,
BonezTheGoon

pilla · Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2002 4:26 pm Post subject:

Once I installed alsa, but I am using the kernel drivers now. But I have compiled gnome with alsa support, and everytime I try to run GnomeMeeting, it complains about not finding sound cards (alsa).

I want to recompile the packages in gnome2 so it stops bothering me about alsa.

Does anybody know which packages I should re-emerge?

choward · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 08 Nov 2002 Posts: 92

I wonder if maybe the problem is the combination of ALSA and devfs. I know mplayer has a --enable-linux-devfs configure switch, but I don't know if it's enabled. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of applications assume non-devfs and that's what's causing the problem with audio.
_________________
Craig Howard
4B Computer Science -- University of Waterloo