On Wed, Oct 08, 2003 at 09:20:24AM +0100, Q wrote: > Hi, can anyone please tell me exactly what I have to do to get alsa > digital audio sound output working on kernel 2.6? As you might know > kernel 2.6 versions come with their own version of alsa supplied, but I > have tried everything imaginable to try to get digital out sound working > and have had no luck at all. My soundcard is an onboard via8233 sound > chip. (Which is extremely common - and as far as I understand it very > well supported too). i've just been through this myself on an Asus A7...? motherboard. I found it very educational installing Gentoo, and i think its v good, but man did it take me a long time! i tried 4 kernels and 4 versions of alsa and failed to get the via82xx sound working properly. After 2 days i gave up and it took about 10 mins to get a soundblaster working. i could be wrong but my feeling is the drivers for the via82xx are not good. I have had lockup problems in the past, but currently have it working fine for Gnomemeeting on an older mobo with alsa 0.9.0 (analogue) > One piece of advice I was given was that I should tell amixer to set > IEC958 unmute and > amixer set "IEC958 Playback AC97-SPSA" 0. first it would be good if you could prove that digital out is actually implemented on your mobo. Have you had it working on older kernels or other OS's? Knoppix? Do you know for sure where the dig output comes out? separate panel? What are you using to test it? Do you have analogue out working? Is your outboard amp getting a carrier signal? > > I also have three mixer channels which I have no idea what they are. > They are all called "Via DXS". Can anyone exlplain what they do? > > If All I want is digital audio output and nothing else, what mixer > controls should I mute and which should I unmute? i hate to say it but these mixers are not very helpful, and i find trial and error to be the best method. Run alsaplayer and try every possible combination. Often the controls dont do what you think, or what they are labeled as :-) which mixer are you using? you may find gnome-alsamixer or similar to be slightly more friendly than alsamixer. > > I have been going at this trying to get digital out sound working in > alsa for 4 weeks now and it's really starting to get me down. Surely > there must be a way? > good luck with this. however, unless you're broke or are prone to geek perversity (not necc a bad thing!), perhaps the best advice would be to get a cheap pci card. cheers -- Tim Orford
