On Sun, 1 Dec 2013, wempwer@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 01, 2013 at 11:03:09AM -0800, Bill Unruh wrote:
>> On Sun, 1 Dec 2013, wempwer@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>
>>> On my way to become an advanced Linux user I started to learn
>>> ALSA. However, it seems that ALSA, and sound system in general on
>>> Linux, is in a pretty bad state at the moment. Here are the examples -
>>> don't get me wrong, fix me if I got things wrong:
>>
>> The write up it poor. Also itself operages quite well.
>>
>>>
>>> 1) my work computer with Ubuntu has HDA Intel PCH soundcard
>>> installed. Moving PCM slider in alsamixer or muting it has no
>>> effect. This happens both when pulseaudio server is stopped and
>>
>> pulseaudio is NOT alsa.
>
> I mentioned pulseaudio to show you that PCM slider is useless in
> alsamixer in both situations and that ALSA itself has even problems
> with setting volume correctly.
That may have to do with your soundcard. For some soundcards, the PCM slider
does things you might not expect. The alsa driver writers simply try to
impliment what the card manufacturers supply. Thus if they supply a PCM slider
and it does nothing then that is what alsa will give you.
It is of course possible that alsa has a bug in it, but I think very often it
is the sound card manufacturer that is at fault, not alsa.
>
>>> running. Moreover, manipulating volume slider inside pavucontrol
>>> results in higher volume than when Master and Speakers are set to
>>> maximum in alsamixer alone. That means, if I set a maximum volume
>>> inside pavucontrol I can hear sound louder because even if volume is
>>> set to maximum in alsamixer it is only about 50% in pavucontrol.
>>>
>>> 2) my home laptop HP Pavilion DV6 3015ew with Slackware has HDA ATI SB
>>> soundcard installed. Here, moving PCM slider in alsamixer changes
>>> volume correctly but PCM cannot be muted. Nothing happens in alsamixer
>>> when I press `m', and amixer says:
>>
>> Probably because your soundcard has no mute.
>
> How can I check it? Is there a list of soundcards with their
> capabilites somewhere or do I need to look for it blindly on the
> internet? It seems strange to me that soundcard cannot be muted.
I think you would have to get the specs for the soundcard from the
manufacturer, which they might not give you. Sometimes alsa writers have to
try to reverse engineer the soundcard, from say the windows drivers, and
sometimes that is really hard to do. Yell at the manufacturer.
>
>>>
>>> $ amixer set PCM mute
>>> amixer: Invalid command!
>>>
>>> pulseaudio is not running here. Why is PCM observed behavior not
>>> coherent between 1) and 2) ?
>>>
>>> 3) my Toshiba n550d netbook has 2 soundcards - alsamixer shows
>>> "HD-Audio Generic" and "HDA ATI SB". What is bad is that the first
>>> card is set as default but it has no controls in alsamixer apart from
>>> "S/PDIF". Why this has happened? It brings some problems in programs
>>> that pick the first available card and treat it as default. For
>>> example, mocp says:
>>>
>>> Running the server...
>>> Trying OSS...
>>
>> oss is not alsa.
>>
>>>
>>> FATAL_ERROR: No valid sound driver
>>>
>>> FATAL_ERROR: Server exited
>>>
>>> I needed to the following to $HOME/.moc/config:
>>>
>>> AlsaDevice = hw:1,0
>>
>> And that solves it? Seems to be a problem with mocp.
>
> There seems to be a problem with ALSA which cannot even pass correct
> information to a client program.
What is it not passing correctly to the client program? And alsa does not
"pass stuff". The client program asks for stuff, and if it gets the question
wrong, the answer will be unhelpful.
.....
>
>>
>>>
>>> 6) A few months ago I got myself Creative bluetooth speakers. I have
>>> the following in my ~/.asoundrc.conf:
>>>
>>> Quote:
>>> pcm.bluetooth {
>>> type bluetooth
>>> device 00:02:3C:20:1D:5E
>>> }
>>>
>>> pcm.!default {
>>> type plug
>>> slave.pcm "bluetooth"
>>> }
>>>
>>> Some programs such as xmms2 can pick these settings correctly and play
>>> music on speakers, but some others such as mplayer can't do that and I
>>> always have to pass "-ao alsa:device=bluetooth" what's really annoying
>>> (I could create an alias for that but it's just a workaround and not a
>>
>> Sorry, telling theprogram which sound output to use is a "workaround"? Surely
>> you do not expect your computer to read your mind as well. Your computer has
>> other sound output devices. How is it to know which one you want unless you
>> tell it?
>
> So why do we have ALSA config in the first place? I wrote my custom
> config and I expect programs to use it. Why should I, as an beginner
> Linux user fight with such hilarious problems?
???? I guess to brighten your day by making you laugh?
It is also possible that you happen to be ignorant of how to configure it to
your liking. I do agree that the documentation for alsa is woeful.
In some cases yell at the writers of the programs. Why would you blame alsa if
the program writers do not know how to ask alsa for the information?
I have no idea if that is the sitution in your case, but it could well be.
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