alsa-project/alsa-lib issue #442 was opened from Thrilled-Oaf:
Greetings~.
I'm on Slackware, which is a pretty languid, laid back distro... so I have to admit that I don't know when this happened...
But I recently updated it, cause I bought a new midi keyboard, a launchkey mk4, and it should have a 'DAW' port, both on its USB connection and the classic pinned midi cable thing.
But instead, aconnect -i and all that just gives me
```
client 24: 'Launchkey MK4 61' [type=kernel,card=2]
0 'Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 '
1 'Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 '
```
I actually use JACK audio on top of alsa but even without jack, this still occurs.
I can sort of pretty print this for JACK but it would be best to have this working properly at the very base... cause if I disable all alsa seq/raw support from JACK, then DAWs like ardour won't even see any midi ports anymore.
I also tried being 'clever' and loading `snd-seq-dummy` and setting up some routing that way... didn't work.
Then I actually edited the source file for the dummy device to specifically give me a properly named DAW port if the index of the dummy port was like, 3 or something.
And while the naming worked, it was ultimately ...not able to help out with this issue.
What is basically assumed by many clients, including the configuration utility `components` for the keyboard is that it has a distinguishable second midi port with a DAW suffix, thus...this is what `aconnect -i` should ideally show.
```
client 24: 'Launchkey MK4 61' [type=kernel,card=2]
0 'Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 '
1 'Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 DAW'
```
I think I read an email somewhere that alsa might be running into a name length limit, but ...perhaps there's a way to configure this?
If not through a configuration file, then maybe somewhere in the source itself...?
I am not shy about that but I would need directions...100% lol.
I also looked up other issues here and some talk about portaudio and mixxx and stuff but this is definitely a system wide issue for me.
And so sad too, it's a text descriptor... a text label of all things... bringing the mighty ALSA to its knees.
A measly, peasly, text label for a little bittle MIDI port...
I tried udev too but ...that was utterly fruitless due to my lack of knowledge/skill... but this all should signal that I'm willing to put in some work, too.
I just don't know what to do anymore. maybe .asoundrc but all the examples are about PCM and my PCM cards work fine, it's just this MIDI ambiguity thing...
Kernel:
` 6.12.17 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Feb 27 15:22:43 CST 2025 x86_64 AMD Ryzen 7 2700 Eight-Core Processor AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux`
All the alsa related packages on my system (many are third party but compiled by me)
```
alsa-lib-1.2.13-x86_64-2
alsa-oss-1.1.8-x86_64-3
alsa-plugin-jack-1.2.5-x86_64-1SBo-git
alsa-plugins-1.2.12-x86_64-2
alsa-plugins-compat32-1.2.12-x86_64-2compat32
alsa-tools-1.0.28-x86_64-1ponce
alsa-utils-1.2.13-x86_64-3
alsamixergui-0.9.0rc2-x86_64-2_SBo
bluez-alsa-3.1.0-x86_64-2ponce
zita-alsa-pcmi-0.3.2-x86_64-1alien
```
Issue URL : https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-lib/issues/442
Repository URL: https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-lib
