Sound in Arch

Gandalf515 · 2009-01-30 03:08:34

Hello there again,

True to my tradition of bunging up everything electronic and then have it magically fix itself whenever I ask for help, here I am hoping it will again after I post this. Or atleast I can help it out fix itself by asking you for aid and helping me out

My problem is this: I have no sound. I'm using OSS after trying ALSA but failing to get any results, and hearing good things about the new versions of OSS. I'm running it all on a laptop, an Asus Z83K to be exact. Here are some outputs:

$ dmesg | grep audio
oss_hdaudio 0000:00:14.2: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
oss_hdaudio: Unknown HDA codec 0x10ec0660
oss_hdaudio: Unknown HDA codec 0x15433155
oss_hdaudio: Unknown HDA codec 0x10ec0660
oss_hdaudio: Unknown HDA codec 0x15433155

Sounds ominous, doesn't it?

$ lspci | grep audio
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV630/M76 audio device [Radeon HD 2600 Series]

Kind of confusing as to what now really is my soundcard, but there is this:

# ossdetect -v
Detected ATI High Definition Audio (SB600)
USB support available in the system, adding USB driver
Detected Generic USB audio/MIDI device (BETA)

If I recall correctly, this was made by OSS itself:

# ossdetect -v
Detected ATI High Definition Audio (SB600)
USB support available in the system, adding USB driver
Detected Generic USB audio/MIDI device (BETA)

When I still had ALSA, "aplay -l" would give me the name/model of my soundcard, a different one from the one above (think it's the chipmodel, although I'm no expert at it and am grasping at straws here), which would be "Intel HDA ALC660-VD".

Now, with Alsa I wouldn't get any results whatsoever. Neither would I with OSS I got some results in ossxmix, on the PCM6 slider with the audio-detection thingy, it would light up according to the sounds played in osstest. I couldn't hear anything though, but when I plugged in my headphones, I could hear a crackling of sorts, which I assume is the next step towards more sound! At this rate I could be listening to Christmas songs in 2027. So, apart from hoping this problem will self-correct when I post this, I'm hoping any of the Arch-veterans out there can help me out with this, because I have a) No idea what I'm doing compared to you, and b) I miss my song-collection

lilsirecho · 2009-01-30 03:13:36

Perhaps, as I did, inserting

 snd-usb-audio

as the first item in /etc/rc.conf will solve your problem.

R00KIE · 2009-01-30 10:56:15

The oss_hdaudio: Unknown HDA codec is just because oss doesn't know the name of the sound codec in your pc (as alsa said Intel HDA ALC660-VD, which isn't completely correct, it should be more like Realtek ALC660-VD (Intel HDA compliant/compatible)) my notebook uses that codec too with an ATI Azalia (Intel HDA) controller ... works worse than crap with alsa, with oss works like a charm. Anyway it should work, I get the same messages and I have sound working and I didn't need to had anything to the modules line .... even a usb headset works just fine if it is connected at boot. Just give ossxmix a try and try fiddling with the settings. For me sound playback works right away but sound capture was a little tricky to get working but eventually I did it.

Gandalf515 · 2009-01-30 14:48:10

Adding the snd-usb-audio module in rc.conf didn't work, I still boot up with the oss_hdaudio: Unknown HDA Codec error message.
R00kie: Not sure what you mean, but I tried fiddling with the settings, to no avail. And to try every possible combination would take thousands of different combinations >.>. Could you help me out with figuring out why it doesn't see the right codec and how to fix it?

Berseker · 2009-01-30 14:53:38

your card should be supported by snd-hda-intel module.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=43457

Gandalf515 · 2009-01-30 15:25:27

Thanks for the link, hadn't seen that thread before, the options they use in /etc/modprobe.conf is the one I would have to use for my soundcard too, but tried the possibilities in that thread and still nothing.
Output:

# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC660-VD Analog [ALC660-VD Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 6: Si3054 Modem [Si3054 Modem]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: ATI HDMI [ATI HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

When using alsaconf, I get the option to select 3 soundcards, first is the hda-intel: ATI Technlogies Inc. SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA),
the second hda-intel: ATI Technologies Inc. RV630/M76 audio device [Radeon 2600] and the third legacy: Probe Legacy ISA (non-PnP) chips.

Also have this:

# lsmod | grep snd
snd_seq_oss            31872  0 
snd_seq_midi_event      8192  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                49968  4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss            40192  0 
snd_mixer_oss          16512  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_hda_intel         412852  2 
snd_usb_audio          83104  0 
snd_pcm                70020  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_usb_audio
snd_timer              21384  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc         10120  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd_usb_lib            17408  1 snd_usb_audio
snd_rawmidi            21504  1 snd_usb_lib
snd_seq_device          8204  3 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd_hwdep               9092  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_usb_audio
snd                    50852  15 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_usb_audio,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device,snd_hwdep
soundcore               8160  1 snd
usbcore               136848  7 stkwebcam,snd_usb_audio,snd_usb_lib,usbhid,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd

And dmesg gives this:

# dmesg | grep hda
hda-intel: Invalid position buffer, using LPIB read method instead.

Last edited by Gandalf515 (2009-01-30 15:27:58)

R00KIE · 2009-01-30 18:15:21

Like I said sound output worked for me "out of the box" with OSS, here is what I have on ossxmix, yours may look a bit different, names at least.
But start with the jack settings, if it says output or internal speakers or green or something like that try setting it to some mix ... its really trial and error.

michaelks · 2009-01-31 03:39:06

Do you have sound as root ? I mean if you start your player command line with su or sudo, does it work ? In that case, chown <you> /dev/snd/* might do the trick.

Ranguvar · 2009-01-31 05:41:11

michaelks wrote:

Do you have sound as root ? I mean if you start your player command line with su or sudo, does it work ? In that case, chown <you> /dev/snd/* might do the trick.

That should NEVER be necessary, and may fsck up your system (at the very least, it's NOT secure). In that case, I'd guess you forgot to add your user to the audio group.

Last edited by Ranguvar (2009-01-31 05:41:25)

michaelks · 2009-01-31 17:07:41

Ranguvar, that's interesting, how would michael ownership of these devices harm the system ? All i can think of is other users not being able to access them, in my case as i'm the only user not a problem. But then, as per
root@michael /home/michael #ls -l /dev/snd
total 0
crw-rw---- 1 michael audio 116, 12 2009-01-30 18:45 controlC0
crw-rw---- 1 michael audio 116, 4 2009-01-30 18:45 hwC0D0
crw-rw---- 1 michael audio 116, 11 2009-01-30 18:45 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw---- 1 michael audio 116, 10 2009-01-31 13:44 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw---- 1 michael audio 116, 9 2009-01-30 18:45 pcmC0D1c
crw-rw---- 1 michael audio 116, 8 2009-01-30 18:45 pcmC0D2c
crw-rw---- 1 michael audio 116, 7 2009-01-30 18:45 pcmC0D2p
crw-rw---- 1 michael audio 116, 6 2009-01-30 18:45 pcmC0D3p
crw-rw---- 1 michael audio 116, 3 2009-01-30 18:45 seq
crw-rw---- 1 michael audio 116, 2 2009-01-30 18:45 timer

,members of audio still have access. Of course if michael belongs to audio, then root can own everything and michael can have sound, which is more elegant, but why is the other solution dangerous ?

Gandalf515 · 2009-02-01 23:29:58

Access to audio doesn't seem to be related to my problem. In both usergroups I have on this pc I can't seem to hear any sound.

michaelks · 2009-02-02 00:15:00

the beginner's guide on wiki has this test after installing alsa, you might want to try it. I'd suggest you drop oss and install alsa.
$ aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

You should hear a very eloquent woman say, "Front, center."

Ranguvar · 2009-02-02 02:39:35

ALSA supports some devices OSS doesn't, and OSS supports some ALSA doesn't... who knows. But look at what the OP said: he already tried ALSA. OSS is (by most accounts, including mine) better anyways.

As for the permissions, it's not a _big_ deal. It's just inelegant, mostly, because you could just add your user to the audio group and have it handled correctly. The only way it could be a security issue is if your user account gets hacked, because they could then delete your sound system, etc. I think (I'm not a big security guy) - if someone else knows better, correct me.

michaelks · 2009-02-02 03:30:43

I'm surprised that you should think oss is better, why then does the kernel config have this message ?

--- Sound card support │ │
│ │ <M> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ---> │ │
│ │ < > Open Sound System (DEPRECATED) ---> │ │
│ │

Anyway, i've always been happy with alsa, alsaconf always finds my card, or the onboard sound of the many mobos i've had, really never a problem, except for that audio group mistake of mine.
As for security, yes, it seems reasonable that a normal user should own as little of the system essentials as possible.

R00KIE · 2009-02-02 14:07:36

Because the oss mentioned isn't the one that is deprecated in the kernel, it's OSS4 which works a lot better for me too.

Gandalf515 · 2009-02-02 14:22:55

Yeah, it's the things I heard about OSS4 that made me want to get that one first. Either way, running aplay on the Front_Center.wav file doesn't work, otherwise I wouldn't have posted here After I plugged in the usb-audio module, dmesg gives me this:

# dmesg | grep audio
usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio

Mind you, when I had Fedora, my sound didn't work either. It's only on Arch that I decided to look into it, as I wanted to keep Arch.

Edit: Reinstalled OSS4, adjusted it to the settings posted a few posts above, but it seems that for everytime I run osstest, I get a dmesg ouput saying it can't find the HDA codecs.

Last edited by Gandalf515 (2009-02-02 16:03:28)

michaelks · 2009-02-02 16:36:53

This is newbie corner, not newbie cornered
What's about this new oss, how does it compare to alsa,and why isn't it in the kernel?
Gandalf515, it could be your card, did you try borrowing one ?
Did you check your bios settings, my gigabyte mobo won't let a chirp out of my soundblaster if its onboard azalea (or whatever) is enabled.

R00KIE · 2009-02-02 19:21:56

What's about this new oss, how does it compare to alsa,and why isn't it in the kernel?

For several reasons, I'm not exactly the best person to answer that but here goes what I know.
OSS was closed source for a while so ALSA came along and was pushed hard to get mainstream, although many developers didn't like the idea, so to make developers switch to ALSA, OSS needed to be considered deprecated.
OSS4, due to the way it works, if it crashes it takes the whole system with it (I don't know about alsa).
OSS4 does not cope well with standby and hibernation as far as I know, ALSA does.
OSS4 sound quality is way way better than ALSA for me (and I tried hard to make ALSA work but no luck there)
OSS4 will work properly _every time_ when several programs are trying to make themselves heard, with ALSA sometimes just one program can hijack your card and then no more sound for any other programs (there is kind of a workaround that makes it a bit better most of the times but not always).
In my limited experience the graphical interface of OSS4 is more confusing than the interface of ALSA (but once you know which controls you need that doesn't matter so much).
Sound capture from a mic in my headset works flawlessly with OSS4, with ALSA it only worked well if I did the capture with audacity and even so not always, with arecord or skype I would get crappy sound (I suspect the problem is my notebook has an HDA codec and these buggers are more of a curse than anything).
But hey, if you can make both OSS4 and ALSA work properly, give both a go a decide for yourself.

Last edited by R00KIE (2009-02-02 19:24:02)

Gandalf515 · 2009-02-02 20:04:27

Nope, nothing in BIOS that will solve this for me either.

michaelks · 2009-02-02 21:44:57

Gandalf515, back in the days when the kernel didn't come with everything enabled as M(odule) for hal or udev to take care of everything for you, you had to do make menuconfig, scroll down to devices -> sound , find your card and enable it. If you were using alsa, you could check your kernel sound config, but there's nothing there for oss . I suppose then that oss4 put its own modules into the kernel, maybe you could check your kernel sound config to see if there's an oss section now and if your can see a module for your card there ? EDIT: And run lsmod to see if it's loaded ?
R00KIE, i have an old soundblaster that lay forgotten in a drawer after the new mobos started coming with what they called 'theater-level higher-than-dvd audio specs' . One day i decided to put the old board back in and wow what a surprise. So sometimes the hardware should not be forgotten. Maybe alsa works better with one type of hardware than oss. The quality of the recording itself is of course another factor, flac is one thing, mp3 another. I can get sound from amarok, xine and mplayer all simultaneously, although i fail to see the point of that. Alsa mixer gives me twenty-odd sliders to choose from. I never experienced a sound crash, but i'm happy to know that alsa won't take the whole system down in that event. Finally, i'm not sure if i understand what you mean by 'OSS4 does not cope well with standby and hibernation'.

Last edited by michaelks (2009-02-02 22:28:13)

Gandalf515 · 2009-02-02 21:58:13

Not exactly sure what you mean with kernel sound config, although I do have a folder in /usr/src/KERNEL/sound named oss...? Either way, the "unknown hda codec" I get at startup really bothers me.

Going to try this added option in modprobe.d/sound, see if that works, although I sincerely doubt it.

# cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=3stack-660-digout

Last edited by Gandalf515 (2009-02-02 22:17:50)

michaelks · 2009-02-02 22:49:49

I mean cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.28-ARCH/
make menuconfig (as root)
Device Drivers --->
<M> Sound card support --->
<M> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ---> (for alsa, nothing for oss in my case)
[*] PCI sound devices --->
- snip -
│ │ [*] ForteMedia FM801 + TEA5757 tuner │ │
│ │ <M> Intel HD Audio │ │
│ │ [*] Build hwdep interface for HD-audio driver │ │
│ │ [*] Support digital beep via input layer │ │
│ │ [*] Build Realtek HD-audio codec support │ │
│ │ [*] Build Analog Device HD-audio codec support │ │
│ │ [*] Build IDT/Sigmatel HD-audio codec support │ │
│ │ [*] Build VIA HD-audio codec support │ │
│ │ [*] Build ATI HDMI HD-audio codec support │ │
│ │ [*] Build NVIDIA HDMI HD-audio codec support
- snip -

So here you'll find a long list of audio drivers, (see your intel there ?). What i'm saying is that if you installed oss4 there'll probably be a non empty oss section now, where hopefully you'll see the module you need. Then you could run lsmod to see if it's there, if not run modprobe to load it.
As for editing your configuration files, better not unless you know what you're doing, chances are you may end up in a pickle if you don't.

Gandalf515 · 2009-02-02 22:58:13

Aah yes, everything was enabled, even when using OSS. Going to go to ALSA now though, that unknown hda codec thing is bugging me the hell out. Nothing to be found about that on the net, atleast nothing that's similar to my problem.
Totally out of ideas right about now though : \

michaelks · 2009-02-03 00:22:29

Your module should be this one :
/lib/modules/2.6.28-ARCH/kernel/sound/pci/hda/snd-hda-intel.ko
Run lsmod and see if it shows up, if not do
#modprobe snd_hda_intel

I did this and here's my lsmod with the module loaded (useless for my case)

root@michael /home/michael #lsmod
Module Size Used by
snd_hda_intel 531124 0
bsd_comp 7936 0
ipt_LOG 8452 3
xt_tcpudp 5632 6
ipt_MASQUERADE 5376 1
- snip -

Gandalf515 · 2009-02-03 10:16:43

# lsmod | grep hda
snd_hda_intel         412852  0 
snd_hwdep               9092  1 snd_hda_intel
snd_pcm                70020  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
snd_page_alloc         10120  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd                    50852  9 snd_hda_intel,snd_hwdep,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mixer_oss

Lots of modules loaded there.
Dmesg gives me nothing at this point.

# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC660-VD Analog [ALC660-VD Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 6: Si3054 Modem [Si3054 Modem]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: ATI HDMI [ATI HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Still the same.
Then I do a testplay of Front_Center.wav, and check dmesg, and again it gives me this:

# dmesg | grep hda
hda-intel: Invalid position buffer, using LPIB read method instead.

Edit, just tried every single "model=" parameter in both modprobe.conf and /etc/modprobe.d/sound, and everytime I use aplay I get the

# dmesg | grep hda
hda-intel: Invalid position buffer, using LPIB read method instead.

error

I hate sound.

Another edit: After editing /etc/modprobe.d/sound from

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=auto enable=1 index=0

to

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=auto position_fix=1 enable=1 index=0

it stopped giving me the dmesg messages about invalid position buffers, although I still have no sound, not even when fiddling with alsamixer.

Last edited by Gandalf515 (2009-02-03 11:26:56)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-01-30 03:08:34

Sound in Arch

#2 2009-01-30 03:13:36

Re: Sound in Arch

#3 2009-01-30 10:56:15

Re: Sound in Arch

#4 2009-01-30 14:48:10

Re: Sound in Arch

#5 2009-01-30 14:53:38

Re: Sound in Arch

#6 2009-01-30 15:25:27

Re: Sound in Arch

#7 2009-01-30 18:15:21

Re: Sound in Arch

#8 2009-01-31 03:39:06

Re: Sound in Arch

#9 2009-01-31 05:41:11

Re: Sound in Arch

#10 2009-01-31 17:07:41

Re: Sound in Arch

#11 2009-02-01 23:29:58

Re: Sound in Arch

#12 2009-02-02 00:15:00

Re: Sound in Arch

#13 2009-02-02 02:39:35

Re: Sound in Arch

#14 2009-02-02 03:30:43

Re: Sound in Arch

#15 2009-02-02 14:07:36

Re: Sound in Arch

#16 2009-02-02 14:22:55

Re: Sound in Arch

#17 2009-02-02 16:36:53

Re: Sound in Arch

#18 2009-02-02 19:21:56

Re: Sound in Arch

#19 2009-02-02 20:04:27

Re: Sound in Arch

#20 2009-02-02 21:44:57

Re: Sound in Arch

#21 2009-02-02 21:58:13

Re: Sound in Arch

#22 2009-02-02 22:49:49

Re: Sound in Arch

#23 2009-02-02 22:58:13

Re: Sound in Arch

#24 2009-02-03 00:22:29

Re: Sound in Arch

#25 2009-02-03 10:16:43

Re: Sound in Arch

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