Arch Linux

RichAustin

Member

From: Wakefield, Yorkshire, England

Registered: 2011-07-27

Posts: 186

Setting up sound

Hi All

I've got sound working on my new Arch installation but it seems to be pretty hit and miss. I might watch Sky Sports and the sound is fine, then watch a video in VLC and the sound is either mute or very quiet. Earlier today I was watching cricket on Sky Sports and there was no sound at all. I found that the following command made the sound work:

amixer sset Master unmute

Ideally I suppose it would be best to remove all of the sound components and start again. However, I'm not sure how to go about this and I am finding the documentation confusing - which system is best for example, Alsa or PulseAudio? Can anyone give me some advice on how to get sound working pretty much flawlessly?

Richard

ooo

Member

Registered: 2013-04-10

Posts: 1,638

Re: Setting up sound

If alsa works for your needs, you don't have any issues with it, and you don't really need pulseaudio for anything, I'd recommend staying away from it. (Nothing against pulseaudio really, but still it's just another extra layer on your audio stack that may cause issues).
You can't really tell which audio system is "the best", each has its benefits, but again if everything works with ALSA, you shouldn't need anything extra running on top of it.

For your issue: ALSA devices are often muted by default. You can check this from alsamixer: if there's "MM" on the bottom of the slider, that means the channel is muted.
Use 'm' from keyboard to unmute it. Run 'alsactl store' as root to save your alsa settings for next reboot.

Make sure you've selected the correct alsa output device for VLC ('default' should usually work).

Last edited by ooo (2014-08-08 14:40:56)

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: Setting up sound

PulseAudio is a sound server running on top of ALSA, which is a sound architecture. An alternative to ALSA is OSS. Another sound server would be JACK.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to get sound working pretty much flawlessly?

Flawlessly in what way, what is your scenario? Following the wiki should get you progress at least a little.

which system is best for example

Best for what? Best according to what criteria?

I would speculate either applications you are using take direct control of the hardware changing volume settings, you are already using pulseaudio and it is set up inefficiently for your hardware/needs, like flat volumes deactivated, modules suspend-on-idle loaded for example, or something is calling 'alsactl restore'.

You provide no information on your hardware whatsoever. Read alsa and pulseaudios wikis, understand what the differences are, then provide more information here.

Edit: Too slow.

Last edited by emeres (2014-08-08 14:41:14)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,550

Website

Re: Setting up sound

which system is best for example, Alsa or PulseAudio?

Best for what?

I'm pretty critical of pulse audio and love alsa.  But this is not (necessarily) because their is anything wrong with pulse audio - it just doesn't fit my needs.  My audio needs are pretty simple, and alsa 'Just Works' for common things, and even in the odd case where I've needed to do something complex, alsa documentation is excellent*.  Pulse audio is much more complex by design, and as a result can handle much more elaborate setups (maybe).  But it is then also much harder to configure in my experience.  This however is all just my subjective input - for anything concrete/objective, you'll need to clarify your needs/goals.

My general approach though is to suggest the simplest tool that will do what you need and only add new tools when you find they are required.  So this leads to my default suggestion of trying to get alsa alone to work first.

*note: I suspect emeres will chime in here eventually - and from what I've seen he is our own alsa documentation live expert.  (Edit: also too slow ... he's already here)

Last edited by Trilby (2014-08-08 14:47:08)

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: Setting up sound

@Trilby You have summoned me? Thank you for kudos, [our] alsas wiki needs still a lot of work though.

RichAustin

Member

From: Wakefield, Yorkshire, England

Registered: 2011-07-27

Posts: 186

Re: Setting up sound

Thanks for the advice. I'm trying to figure it all out, it seems Alsa is all one really needs. In terms of what system is best? I think I should clarify that really:

All I am looking for is reasonable sound which works on everything ie. Video (VLC), Browser (Firefox, Opera) Clementine etc. I just want it to work, not have certain things that inexplicably have no sound.

I'll go back through the docs which you have kindly suggested.

Thanks
Richard

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Setting up sound

I don't recall having issues with ALSA - it just works.