alsa && pulseaudio && kde != sound

theodore · 2014-05-10 18:01:09

Hi guys, I am trying to make my system work with alsa, pulseaudio (with just alsa everything works fine, but some programs demand pulseadio) and all the related packages (e.g. pulseaudio-alsa) at my desktop. Whatever I tried from the wiki didn't work at all.

So, I would be grateful if you could guide me step by step and see where is the problem, because I am getting crazy.

Thanks.

felipe · 2014-05-10 22:32:46

You don't get sound on some aplications? Are you using a usb headset or HDMI output or anything diferent to the analog output? If so you need to change the default sound card in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

orschiro · 2014-05-11 05:15:08

Please describe what does not work.

theodore · 2014-05-11 14:31:12

Sorry guys for not describing the problem. Well I have in my system two hdmi outputs (two graphic cards on my system) and one analog (motherboard embedded intel sound card). I want to use as main sound card the intel one.

[theodore@tt ~]$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD1988B Analog [AD1988B Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: AD1988B Digital [AD1988B Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 2: AD1988B Alt Analog [AD1988B Alt Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI_1 [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

following the wiki, and using the default configurations, pulseaudio starts during the booting but it detects as main sound output one of the hdmi cards. Changing it manually to the analog output through kmix more or less everything works, except skype. Then doing the following

 # echo "autospawn = no" > /etc/pulse/client.conf

and restarting skype I have skype working plus pulseaudio managing my audio for all the different programs.

However, after a while different strange things can happen, all the time only when pulseaudio is running. For example, desktop can freeze (I think this is related to the flashplugin, that runs on the firefox, and the bad integration with pulseaudio), or the microphone starts all of sudden screaming with a high frequency sound which literally kills your ears, and the last thing that it happened yesterday is all of sudden the speakers sending out a crackling noise, which is annoying as well. Then what I do is restarting computer, but then pulseaudio is not starting which I am sure that is related to what I have done earlier in order to make skype work, since if I remove the "autospawn = no" from the client.conf file pulse audio start again but again without having sound in skype, where I have to repeat the previous mentioned procedure.

If pulseaudio does not start everything falls back to alsa, but the problem with that is that I cannot have sound simultaneously with different programs especially with the ones that are based on pulseaudio. So, what do you think.

emeres · 2014-05-11 15:13:00

To set your integrated card as default use modprobe configuration with vid and pid, since you apparently have HDMI hda-compliant cards, so they use snd-hda-intel as well. Configuring only the integrated card should be sufficient, even though it, from reading aplay -l, already is default.
As for the sound anomalies, look for "recent" threads concerning pulseaudio 5, you may have one of those issues.
Not wasting time on skype, tox is a promising alternative, even though not quite finished yet.

theodore wrote:

If pulseaudio does not start everything falls back to alsa, but the problem with that is that I cannot have sound simultaneously with different programs especially with the ones that are based on pulseaudio. So, what do you think.

You can have multiple sounds at once with alsa only by setting your default card using the method I mentioned above, even though the "compatibility layer" from pulseaudio-alsa package overwrites pcm.default, it still falls back to sysdefault.

theodore · 2014-05-11 17:12:59

update:

well after setting the integrated card as the default one by using the modprobe configuration with vid and pid into the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf file:

options snd slots=snd_hda_intel
options snd_hda_intel index=0

and modifying the /etc/asound.conf file according to the Using_mbeq I managed to make skype work as well. I will try to test the system for a couple of days and see how it goes.

@emeres thanks for the infor about tox. It really seems promising but as you stated, it still needs some time. I will have a look at it though ;-).

emeres · 2014-05-11 17:28:00

If that is your whole setup for snd-hda-intel, you did not use vid and pid at all. Read the chapter in the link I provided again to the end, there is a example. Also using slots and index is unnecessary, pick one, but in your case you should use index with vid and pid like in the example on the wiki.

theodore · 2014-05-11 18:45:15

According to the

lspci -nn | grep -i audio

from the wiki, I am getting:

00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:293e] (rev 02)                                                         
01:00.1 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Cypress HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 5800 Series] [1002:aa50]                                           
02:00.1 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV710/730 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 4000 series] [1002:aa38]

so I modified my alsa-base.conf file as:

# HD Audio Controller                                                                                                                                                
options snd-hda-intel index=0 model=auto vid=8086 pid=293e                                                                                                           
# Cypress HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 5800 Series]                                                                                                                         
options snd-hda-intel index=1 model=auto vid=1002 pid=aa50                                                                                                           
# V710/730 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 4000 series]                                                                                                                        
options snd-hda-intel index=2 model=auto vid=1002 pid=aa38

and from the aplay -l I am getting this:

[theodore@tt ~]$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI_1 [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1                                                                                                                                                    
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0                                                                                                                                         
card 2: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD1988B Analog [AD1988B Analog]                                                                                                 
  Subdevices: 0/1                                                                                                                                                    
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0                                                                                                                                         
card 2: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: AD1988B Digital [AD1988B Digital]                                                                                               
  Subdevices: 1/1                                                                                                                                                    
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0                                                                                                                                         
card 2: Intel [HDA Intel], device 2: AD1988B Alt Analog [AD1988B Alt Analog]                                                                                         
  Subdevices: 1/1                                                                                                                                                    
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

is that correct, shouldn't HDA Intel be card 0 instead of card 2?

emeres · 2014-05-11 19:17:11

theodore wrote:

is that correct, shouldn't HDA Intel be card 0 instead of card 2?

Exactly. Either reduce the configuration to only the HDA Intel, leave model option out or revert the whole process. Either way, this should not happen, reporting it to alsa-user mailing list should be productive.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-05-10 18:01:09

alsa && pulseaudio && kde != sound

#2 2014-05-10 22:32:46

Re: alsa && pulseaudio && kde != sound

#3 2014-05-11 05:15:08

Re: alsa && pulseaudio && kde != sound

#4 2014-05-11 14:31:12

Re: alsa && pulseaudio && kde != sound

#5 2014-05-11 15:13:00

Re: alsa && pulseaudio && kde != sound

#6 2014-05-11 17:12:59

Re: alsa && pulseaudio && kde != sound

#7 2014-05-11 17:28:00

Re: alsa && pulseaudio && kde != sound

#8 2014-05-11 18:45:15

Re: alsa && pulseaudio && kde != sound

#9 2014-05-11 19:17:11

Re: alsa && pulseaudio && kde != sound

Board footer