[SOLVED] Sound Issue (pulseaudio: command not found)

[rphii]

Hi, hopefully you're having a better time than my audio right now


I already had similar problems a while back (viewtopic-p-8687951.html) and never managed to fix them, but since then I completely reinstalled the whole system + I have a different behavior altogether.

I have a slight issue in understanding how to setup audio (again), I have more questions than anything else, but I don't know where else to ask so here I am, hoping that this last resort enlightens me. Sadly I'm not that of an experienced linux user yet to see through this... Anways, I tried both alsa and pulseaudio (and pavucontrol).

configuration

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Kernel: 6.3.2-gentoo
Shell: bash 5.2.15
DE: Hyprland

- asound state https://pastebin.com/Bs1UK3DH
- make.conf https://pastebin.com/4xztpcsa
- pa-info https://pastebin.com/47WKywHH
- aplay -L https://pastebin.com/Hy4V2LJx
- speaker-test https://pastebin.com/ZUAYRhE9

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rphii@gent ~ $ groups rphii
wheel audio video users seat rphii

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rphii@gent ~ $ lspci | grep -i audio
1c:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
1e:00.0 Audio device: Creative Labs Device 0010 (rev 01)
20:00.3 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) HD Audio Controller

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rphii@gent ~ $ grep -i codec /proc/asound/*/codec*
/proc/asound/Creative/codec#1:Codec: Creative Sound Blaster AE-7
/proc/asound/Generic/codec#0:Codec: Realtek ALC1220
/proc/asound/NVidia/codec#0:Codec: Nvidia GPU 93 HDMI/DP
/proc/asound/card0/codec#0:Codec: Nvidia GPU 93 HDMI/DP
/proc/asound/card1/codec#1:Codec: Creative Sound Blaster AE-7
/proc/asound/card2/codec#0:Codec: Realtek ALC1220

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rphii@gent ~ $ pa-info > pa_info
which: no pulseaudio in (/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/opt/bin:/usr/lib/llvm/16/bin)
/usr/bin/pa-info: line 57: pulseaudio: command not found
Connection failure: Connection refused
pa_context_connect() failed: Connection refused
Connection failure: Connection refused
pa_context_connect() failed: Connection refused
cat: /etc/pulse/daemon.conf: No such file or directory
cat: /etc/pulse/system.pa: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/pa-info: line 57: lsof: command not found
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh: line 464: /proc/asound/modules: No such file or directory
cat: /tmp/alsa-info.sVayOgBST1/alsamodules.tmp: No such file or directory
cat: /proc/asound/modules: No such file or directory
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh: line 659: tree: command not found
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh: line 659: tree: command not found
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh: line 659: tree: command not found
cat: /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/user_pin_configs: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/init_verbs: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/hints: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/class/sound/hwC1D1/user_pin_configs: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/class/sound/hwC1D1/init_verbs: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/class/sound/hwC1D1/hints: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/class/sound/hwC2D0/user_pin_configs: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/class/sound/hwC2D0/init_verbs: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/class/sound/hwC2D0/hints: No such file or directory

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rphii@gent ~ $ cat /etc/pulse/default.pa
load-module module-oss

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rphii@gent ~ $ cat .asoundrc 
#defaults.pcm.!card Creative # which to use - number or string ?
defaults.pcm.!card 1
defaults.pcm.!device 0
#defaults.ctl.!card Creative
defaults.ctl.!card 1
#defaults.pcm.dmix.rate 96000 # and this ?

questions regarding alsa

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rphii@gent ~ $ alsamixer
cannot open mixer: Host is down

However, if I run:

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alsamixer -c 1

1) It properly opens up. Why?
2) see the last code segment in the config section above... do I use numbers or strings? do I use the dmix.rate or not?

questions regarding pulseaudio

3) I'd like to start pulseaudio, but it just won't do it's thing. What the hell is up with that? (I really wonder how I messed this up)

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rphii@gent ~ $ sudo emerge pulseaudio

 * IMPORTANT: 17 news items need reading for repository 'gentoo'.
 * Use eselect news read to view new items.

[ebuild   R   ] media-sound/pulseaudio-16.1  USE="glib -bluetooth -daemon -jack -ofono-headset" ABI_X86="(64) -32 (-x32)"

Would you like to merge these packages? [Yes/No] y
>>> Verifying ebuild manifests
>>> Emerging (1 of 1) media-sound/pulseaudio-16.1::gentoo
>>> Installing (1 of 1) media-sound/pulseaudio-16.1::gentoo
>>> Completed (1 of 1) media-sound/pulseaudio-16.1::gentoo
>>> Jobs: 1 of 1 complete                           Load avg: 4.43, 3.61, 1.69

 * IMPORTANT: 17 news items need reading for repository 'gentoo'.
 * Use eselect news read to view new items.

rphii@gent ~ $ pulseaudio
bash: pulseaudio: command not found

questions regarding pavucontrol

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rphii@gent ~ $ pavucontrol

=> window opens, I see a window telling me:
"Connection to PulseAudio failed. [...]"

4) probably because I can't run pulseaudio in the first place...?


Regards and thanks for making it to this post, seriously.

[flexibeast]

media-sound/pulseaudio-16.1 USE="glib -bluetooth -daemon -jack -ofono-headset"

"-daemon" says not to install PulseAudio as a sound server, which is what the `pulseaudio` executable is. Instead, what gets installed are Pulse libraries needed by Pulse-based applications; these libraries get used for Pulse compatibility when running PipeWire as a sound server. And yes, "pavucontrol" requires a running sound server.

So, you need to remove the "-daemon" USE flag from your configuration.

[stefan11111]

"-daemon" says not to install PulseAudio as a sound server, which is what the `pulseaudio` executable is. Instead, what gets installed are Pulse libraries needed by Pulse-based applications; these libraries get used for Pulse compatibility when running PipeWire as a sound server. And yes, "pavucontrol" requires a running sound server.

Isn't that what apulse is?

[flexibeast]

And yes, "pavucontrol" requires a running sound server.

Isn't that what apulse is?

Not to my understanding (though i might well be wrong); it's a wrapper script, as described by its man page:

apulse wasn't designed to be a drop-in replacement of PulseAudio. It's pointless, since that will be just reimplementation of original PulseAudio, with the same client-daemon architecture, required by the complete feature set. Instead, only parts of the API that are crucial to specific applications are implemented. That's why there is a loader script, named apulse. It updates value of LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to point also to the directory where apulse's libraries are installed, making them available to the application.

That said, i have no idea what would happen if it was applied to pavucontrol (i.e. by running `apulse pavucontrol`).

[rphii]

media-sound/pulseaudio-16.1 USE="glib -bluetooth -daemon -jack -ofono-headset"

"-daemon" says not to install PulseAudio as a sound server, which is what the `pulseaudio` executable is. Instead, what gets installed are Pulse libraries needed by Pulse-based applications; these libraries get used for Pulse compatibility when running PipeWire as a sound server. And yes, "pavucontrol" requires a running sound server.

So, you need to remove the "-daemon" USE flag from your configuration.

I managed to get pulseaudio (daemon) running. When I want to test it, with e.g. vlc, it says

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vlcpulse audio output error: PulseAudio server connection failure: Connection refused

Summary of what I did and more info: https://pastebin.com/tv1hp9ry

I don't know why alsamixer and aplay -L stopped doing anything anymore, forcing me to stop them with ctrl-c...


EDIT THE DAY AFTER

Somehow all works now. alsamixer, aplay -L and pavucontrol (took a while to actually start running but it did work).