Thank you JRT for that really thorough and helpful overview of how it all
works together. Unfortunately, I'm still no closer to being able to listen
to clean music while I work :-(
FYI, in Debian at least, the ownership of the /dev/<sound devices> is set to:
root:audio (not root:sound).
Any other ideas about how to approach troubleshooting this? I'm running out
of hope... I might just have to plug the audio back into my Mac for music.
If some kind soul would walk me through troubleshooting this, I'd be most
grateful :-)
If you're up to the challenge, here a summary: My system sounded very good
before I upgraded to a 2.6 kernel with alsa. Now I think that arts and alsa
are competing for my sound card. Here's a layout of what's happening:
1) JuK sounds sort of garbled when set to arts (like an old slightly
demagnetized audio tape)
2) JuK sounds listenable but with occasional pops when set to GStreamer (like
a vinyl record that pops occasionally).
3) [newly discovered] KDE (which uses arts) and JuK (which is set to use
GStreamer) don't seem to be able to share the sound card. If I reboot, I can
hear KDE sounds (startup, new mail, etc), UNTIL I use JuK, then from that
point on, I hear no KDE sounds unless I quit JuK and do:
/etc/init.d/alsa restart
Any clues in there?
Sean
On Monday 03 May 2004 02:21 am, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> Sean Schertell wrote:
> > On Sunday 02 May 2004 02:32 pm, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> >>Sean Schertell wrote:
> >>>On Sunday 02 May 2004 01:09 am, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> >>>>kde@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >>>>>Can someone please explain how to get KDE 3.2.2 to use alsa? I've got
> >>>>> a 2.6.5 kernel and alsa is running but doesn't really work with KDE.
> >>>>> Here are some clues:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>1) The test sound works well from the control center, but I don't hear
> >>>>>the KDE startup sound or any other KDE sounds.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>2) JuK sounds a bit "garbled" when set to use arts output
> >>>>>(unlistenable).
> >>>>>
> >>>>>3) JuK produces no sound and skips to the next track when set to use
> >>>>>GStreamer output.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Help please! I don't understand how KDE and arts and oss and
> >>>>> gstreamer and alsa are supposed to all work together ?! Mostly, I
> >>>>> just want to get JuK sounding okay again.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>If you have any clues at all, please enlighten me!
> >>>>
> >>>>I'm not sure of your problem.
> >>>>
> >>>>IIUC, you must have the latest version of ALSA to use with the new
> >>>>Kernel. Do you have ALSA 1.0.4? If not, upgrading ALSA is the first
> >>>>thing that I would suggest.
> >>>>
> >>>>There was a bug in KDE that you had to select ALSA in the Sound System
> >>>>KCM. I don't know if that is still necessary, but I would then try that
> >>>>as well.
> >>>
> >>>Thanks for your help... but actually, I do have the latest 1.04 ALSA and
> >>>I've tried selecting ALSA or Threaded Open Sound System in Control
> >>> Center -- same results. I think maybe I've got too many sound modules
> >>> loaded or something. Any other ideas?
> >>
> >>You must have: "/etc/modules.conf" setup correctly for it to work.
> >>
> >>There are copy and paste level instructions for most sound cards at:
> >>
> >> http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/
> >>
> >>--
> >>JRT
> >
> > Thanks JRT,
> >
> > Actually, I think I read somewhere that that file is no longer relevant
> > under a 2.6 kernel. Can't remember what you're supposed to do instead --
> > I worked on this for about 10 hours so I read a *lot* of stuff... but I
> > still don't understand how all of these things are supposed to work
> > together:
> >
> > * arts
> > * arstd
> > * oss
> > * alsa
> > * alsa with oss compatibility
> > * gstreamer
> >
> > Crikey, could they possibly make sound any more confusing on Linux even
> > if they tried?! :-(
>
> *Some* of this is simple. OSS is the old system that is being replaced by
> ALSA. So, if you are using ALSA, you don't use OSS, but ALSA has OSS
> compatibility so that it will work with older programs that don't support
> ALSA output yet. It that was all, we wouldn't have any issues.
>
> Then on top of that, KDE uses the aRts sound system. This provides a
> higher level API to KDE applications using sound. Like many UNIX things,
> aRts runs a daemon -- that wound be: "artsd". You don't have to worry
> about the daemons, they are created by the aRts system when needed.
>
> There are problems with aRts. It doesn't seem to want to work with
> everything. I find that to run the ALSAPlayer that I must first kill all
> of the instances of: "artsd". I consider this to be a serious bug.
>
> Then you are also using GStreamer program which I haven't tried yet (this
> is odd since I tend to try everything but I have been busy helping my
> Father move so that will probably have to wait two weeks or so).
>
> It appears that GStreamer fits in the same place that aRts does. It is a
> layer between the actual sound system and the applications using sound to
> provide a higher level API. It is possible that GStreamer isn't getting
> along with aRts.
>
> These two sound API systems: GStreamer and aRts both need to access the
> proper Linux device. aRts will probably use: "/dev/dsp" although ALSA is
> supposed to use: "/dev/snd/*" and the current method refers to them by
> their "major number" rather than device name. Device (psudo) files have a
> major and minor number to identify them to the system. In any case, you
> should check the permissions of:
>
> /dev/dsp*
> /dev/audio*
> /dev/midi*
> /dev/mixer*
> /dev/sequencer
> /dev/sound/*
> /dev/beep
>
> There seems to be a disagreement on whether the ALSA device directory
> should be named: "snd" or "sound". I made a link:
>
> sound -> snd
>
> in the: "/dev/" directory to eliminate this issue.
>
> These devices all need to have the correct ownership and permissions for
> sound to work. The orthodox UNIX method is to have them: root:sound:660.
> You then must have a group: "sound" and all user accounts that are
> permitted to use the sound system must be members of the group: "sound".
> Alternately, they can be: root:root:666, but this is considered to be bad
> security. If you have PAM installed and running, you will find that the
> ownership and permissions of these devices might be changing and that this
> is screwing things up. If you are using PAM and want those permissions
> with the group: "sound", you need to edit [as root]:
> "/etc/security/console.perms". Change this line to read:
>
> <console> 0660 <sound> 0660 root.sound
>
> Then use: "KUser" to set up the: "sound" group. Restart KDE to see if this
> helps. If not, IIWU, I would install ALSAPlayer and kill all: "artsd" and
> anything that is GStreamer and see if it works.
>
> There is also Jack which I installed but have no idea how to use. But, it
> might let you use more than one sound system at the same time.
>
> --
> JRT
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