Can't get ALSA to output sound through Sound Blaster AE-7

[rphii]

I followed the steps in the ALSA gentoo wiki. However, when I run

[NeddySeagoon]

rphii,

Welcome to gentoo.

Restart the alsasound service, then put the content of /var/lib/alsa/asound.state onto a pastebin please.
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NeddySeagoon

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[rphii]

Hi and thanks

Here is the pastebin: https://pastebin.com/0BzUhrGu

[NeddySeagoon]

rphii,

A few things ...

Mute all the controls with IEC958 in their names. Most sound cards can output to IEC958 (digital) or analogue, which is what you want but not both at the same time.
When IEC958 is enabled, analogue is silent.
That's a showstopper fix that first.

[rphii]

Neddy,

I went ahead and muted all the controls with IEC958 in their name, and restarted the service just to be sure.

[Jaglover]

rphii,

my personal approach to a problem like this is booting with some good liveCD, Ubuntu, Mint and see how it sets up the sound. Indeed, they use PulseAudio, but there is ALSA working underneath. But first I'd use some audio application which lets easily choose output, like VLC, to find out which output is working - if any.
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[rphii]

Jaglover,

[Jaglover]

Then some liveCD, and check what modules are loaded for sound. And codecs:

[rphii]

Jaglover,

thanks for sticking with me.

[Jaglover]

Well, if you have a liveCD with working audio then comparing with your loaded codecs would tell us whether your kernel is configured correctly. Once it is confirmed and there is still no sound then I'd say something is off with your mixer settings. BTW, alsamixer often does not fit the terminal window, use arrow right to see all sliders.

[rphii]

So I found another post here: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/problem-with-soundblaster-ae7-remaining-as-default-device/50907

I did the exact same thing as the OP in the link above did. Install Manjaro kde and check that the kernel version is above 5.10.

Then I ran pavucontrol and in the configuration I selected “Analog Stereo Duplex (not available)” from the HDA Creative dropdown. (As the OP suggested)

And finally, in the Manjaro sound settings I disabled all sound devices except for the Creative one.

After that, my audio on Manjaro was working perfectly (the OP in the post above had some other issue I didn't have, I assume because I muted all other devices).

In Manjaro, those are the codecs.

[Jaglover]

rphii,

there is more than one way to set up sound in Linux.

#1 Soundcard - ALSA - user
The oldest way is to use ALSA and its tools. Die-hard purists still use this way. Setting up sophisticated configurations by hand can be cumbersome.

#2 Soundcard - ALSA - PulseAudio - user
This, most used way nowadays by mainstream distros, is to use PulseAudio (PA). In this case user interacts with PA and PA configures ALSA without user needing to know anything about manual configuration.

There are more ways for special needs, but we are not talking about those here.

Pavucontrol belongs to PA and won't do anything useful in plain ALSA systems. You have to make up your mind which method you will use. There are Gentoo Wiki pages, also Arch Linux has very good Wiki. When studying Arch Wiki keep in mind Arch is systemd based, while Gentoo gives you choice whether to use OpenRC or systemd.
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[rphii]

Jaglover,

I installed pulseaudio. But I get the following: