Has anyone got XITEL MD-PORT DG-2 USB audio device working?

[zuiko]

I've been trying to get my Xitel USB audio device working on Gentoo and haven't been successful unfortunately. I believ I have the correct things compiled into the kernel and my /proc/bus/usb/devices shows the device.

I just can't figure out how to get the USB Audio Device working to output sound to it.

Anyone who has experience or ideas... please feel free to write about your experience on getting this working...

Thanks in advance.

[zuiko]

Here's how...

Use ALSA as it is the best way to have two cards work seamlessly.

In your /etc/make.conf
Define your ALSA cards as follows:

ALSA_CARDS='intel8x0 usb-audio'

My primary card happens to be intell8x0. Change that to reflect your own situation. The usb-audio driver is what the XITEL MD-Port uses.

Now recompile your kernel with USB Audio support as a module (found in the USB section). Click the EZMagic item below it also as a module. Also make sure that you enable Sound support as a module. Don't compile any of the kernel source sound modules at all - neither built-into the kernel nor as modules.

After the kernel and modules are built and installed do:

emerge alsa-driver

This should build the relevant ALSA modules for you. You need to set up the ALSA modules now. You do this by making/modifying /etc/modules.d/alsa to reflect your setup. For a primary sound card plus the Xitel here's my setup to make this combo work:

## /etc/modules.d/alsa
# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
alias snd-card-1 snd-usb-audio

# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
# OSS/Free portion - card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss


## OSS/Free portion - card #2
alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

# Set this to the correct number of cards.
options snd cards_limit=2

#==========================

Now type as root:

modules-update

Finally once you've done all that do the following:

rc-update add alsasound boot

That should be it... Reboot your machine and an lsmod should show that the usb-audio module has been loaded. Also do a 'cat /proc/bus/usb/devices' to see whether the Xitel MD-Port has been detected.

If your Xitel was plugged in during the boot I found that it was the default snd device so that 'alsamixergui' showed the Xitel MD-Port mixers right away. If you unplug it then the default sound card should become the card that alsamixergui shows. Finally if you plug the MD-Port back into the computer then doing 'alsamixergui -c1' will give you the USB mixer. Pretty nifty....

Enjoy....

BTW: What is a Xitel MD-PORT DG2???

It's a USB sound device that outputs sound as an optical digital stream capable of being input into minidisc players. With it users of older minidiscs can get capabilities of the newer Net-MD players made by Sony and co. I rate it a 4.5 out of 5 as a gadget.

[mobymac]

don't even know if anyone's paying any attention to this anymore... but if anyone could help me out I'm having trouble even after following this guide.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-4070211.html#4070211