Re: why oh why...
On 26/06/10 4:50 PM, Nick Rout wrote: On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 3:21 PM, Don Robertsond...@robertson.net.nz wrote: On 16/06/10 09:43, Steve Holdoway wrote: Just no output on either device. Can anyone point me to a decent, up to date ( this is ubuntu 9.10 ) troubleshooting guide. I was having problems with audio on a Kubuntu system updated to 9.10 with pulse audio installed. I installed 10.4 to clean up all the things I had - um, fixed, and have not had a problem with audio since. I do have some pulse audio client stuff and a VLC plugin installed - but not the server stuff. ahh the ubuntu solution, sounds a bit like the windows solution. Just to add to the randomness, I had a new box with a fresh install of 10.04 a few days ago (though an existing /home) that had sound working following install, stopped working as a result of a round or 2 of apt-get updrades, and the fix included removing pulseaudio totally (and I believe it is now using an alsa-something). Took an hour out of the day and a few trial reboots following various google leads - this being all I can suggest for a troubleshooting guide that helped me today. Conversely sound on a different desktop that has been through (otherwise successfully) a few kubuntu versions will randomly start (if it was broked) or stop (if it was working) following a new version. The fix tends to involve a reinstall of pulseaudio even if synaptic says it is already. And flash sound may or may not work just because sound generally does, again it's a bit random when it might break (and not necessarily following a new version). Sorry to be not posting a useful email, this is just highlighting what appears to be the main remaining headache in reliably getting a general desktop install/upgrade to just work. Cheers, Roger
Re: why oh why...
On 16/06/10 09:43, Steve Holdoway wrote: Just no output on either device. Can anyone point me to a decent, up to date ( this is ubuntu 9.10 ) troubleshooting guide. I was having problems with audio on a Kubuntu system updated to 9.10 with pulse audio installed. I installed 10.4 to clean up all the things I had - um, fixed, and have not had a problem with audio since. I do have some pulse audio client stuff and a VLC plugin installed - but not the server stuff. -- __ Don Robertson Information and Communications Technology d...@robertson.net.nz www.robertson.net.nz 021 294 1452 03 322 8172
Re: why oh why...
DVD-player -- dmix (48 kHz) -- sample-conversion (48--44.1) -- dmix (44.1) -- sound card your system is redundant you don't need two dmix plugins my system is setup with: samplerate converter (called plug)-- dmix sound card [well it's a bit more complex ( http://pastebin.org/359575)] It will play 22050Hz sound with 44100Hz sounds at the same time
Re: why oh why...
On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 3:21 PM, Don Robertson d...@robertson.net.nz wrote: On 16/06/10 09:43, Steve Holdoway wrote: Just no output on either device. Can anyone point me to a decent, up to date ( this is ubuntu 9.10 ) troubleshooting guide. I was having problems with audio on a Kubuntu system updated to 9.10 with pulse audio installed. I installed 10.4 to clean up all the things I had - um, fixed, and have not had a problem with audio since. I do have some pulse audio client stuff and a VLC plugin installed - but not the server stuff. ahh the ubuntu solution, sounds a bit like the windows solution.
Re: why oh why...
And finally with the last few versions of Ubuntu there is a push for pulseaudio which I think is utter rubbish. It seems to me the real problem lies in ALSA's inability to work with more then one source. There are some workarounds that disable ALSA from locking the card to one app. I remember ALSA brought out a patch that allow software mixing for hardware that didn't support it by default, I can't seem to reproduce it though, but my .asoundrc file works quite well
Re: why oh why...
On Wed, 2010-06-16 at 10:23 +1200, solor...@epic.geek.nz wrote: On Wed, June 16, 2010 09:43, Steve Holdoway wrote: ... cant linux get it's sound sorted out properly? I share your frustration with Linux sound. We started with OSS, which was okay *if* you had a card that was supported. Then ALSA came along and it was struggle for a bit in the beginning. To date it still has issues playing from more then one source at a time. So several sound daemons were made, esd, arts, etc. that tried to solve that problem. But then they don't play with apps that need real-time access to the hardware. And finally with the last few versions of Ubuntu there is a push for pulseaudio which I think is utter rubbish. It seems to me the real problem lies in ALSA's inability to work with more then one source. There are some workarounds that disable ALSA from locking the card to one app. The problem is deeper than just alsa... Alsa has a plugin called dmix, which allows multiple applications to open an alsa output stream at the same time; the individual sources are added together. Similarly, there is a plugin called dshare, which allows multiple applications to open an alsa input stream simultaneously; the individual applications get their own copy of the data. This is an almost good enough solution. The problem is that dmix and dshare can only operate at a single sample rate at a time. The sample rate of the sound card is set by the application that first uses a dmix device. So if you try to play a DVD or other video source with a 48kHz audio sample rate at the same time as a CD or other audio source with a 44.1kHz audio sample rate then suddenly the second application finds that it cannot open the device because the sample rate that it wants conflicts with the sample rate set by the first application. Some sound cards (but not many) can have multiple streams operating at different sample rates. Your typical cheap sound card has a single stream in each direction that runs at a single sample rate. Now, alsa has other plugins that do sample rate conversion. So you could set up a chain of alsa plugins as follows: DVD-player -- dmix (48 kHz) -- sample-conversion (48--44.1) -- dmix (44.1) -- sound card CD-player -- dmix (44.1) -- sound card Then applications could open either the 48 khz or the 44.1 kHz dmix device and everything would be fine. However, the application would have to know to open a different audio device depending on the sample rate. A music-playing application might have audio sources with BOTH sample rates, so it would have to open both devices. A further problem is that these plugins are set up in configuration files (/etc/asound.conf, ~/.asoundrc). So if someone wants to play or record at 22050, 24000, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz sample rate and who knows what else, he has to modify the config files. And then my digital camera records audio at 11024 (rather than the more logical 11025 which is 1/4 of CD sample rate)... You have a similar problem in the reverse direction for audio input -- if we want to record audio for digital video and CD simultaneously. JACK provides a robust mechanism for coordinating audio at the sample level between multiple applications, and is ideal for studio-grade applications. However, it operates at a fixed sample rate and hence does not solve the DVD-CD sample rate mismatch. It relies on the applications to do sample rate conversion, or more typically, for the user to ensure that all his sources use the same sample rate. Now pulseaudio can provides multiple alsa-compatible devices and does automatic sample rate conversion and sound-card sharing. It also does esd-compatible network audio input and output, so that when I am logged into my Linux box from a Windows box (using Cygwin/X and puTTY), I can play a video on the Linux box that displays on the Windows screen, and the sound comes out of the Windows sound card. So, I believe that pulseaudio really does provide useful functionality. But it all comes at the cost of higher latency, complexity, and bugs as the system gets itself worked out. Stephen Irons
Re: why oh why...
On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Steve Holdoway st...@greengecko.co.nz wrote: ... cant linux get it's sound sorted out properly? I've lost mine again... I know it works as I get a 'click' when a new window opens. But playing anything at all - forget it. System says everything's fine. Gnome sound preferences widget can see both the analog stereo and the usb headset, and is allegedly outputting, at volume 100% to both. alsamixer has all sane values next to it. Just no output on either device. Can anyone point me to a decent, up to date ( this is ubuntu 9.10 ) troubleshooting guide. Or start a project to provide a sane alternative to alsa... (: You mean like pulseaudio? In fact that's probably where your problem lies. Also you could try unloading and relading the relevant alsa modules.
Re: why oh why...
On Wed, June 16, 2010 09:43, Steve Holdoway wrote: ... cant linux get it's sound sorted out properly? I've lost mine again... I know it works as I get a 'click' when a new window opens. But playing anything at all - forget it. System says everything's fine. Gnome sound preferences widget can see both the analog stereo and the usb headset, and is allegedly outputting, at volume 100% to both. alsamixer has all sane values next to it. Just no output on either device. Can anyone point me to a decent, up to date ( this is ubuntu 9.10 ) troubleshooting guide. Or start a project to provide a sane alternative to alsa... (: Cheers, Steve I share your frustration with Linux sound. We started with OSS, which was okay *if* you had a card that was supported. Then ALSA came along and it was struggle for a bit in the beginning. To date it still has issues playing from more then one source at a time. So several sound daemons were made, esd, arts, etc. that tried to solve that problem. But then they don't play with apps that need real-time access to the hardware. And finally with the last few versions of Ubuntu there is a push for pulseaudio which I think is utter rubbish. It seems to me the real problem lies in ALSA's inability to work with more then one source. There are some workarounds that disable ALSA from locking the card to one app. I think that 10.04 is better in the PA area... but only just. For my mythtv frontend boxes I remove PA and just use ALSA. For a desktop, you might consider esound (esd) or look at upgrading PA with a PPA to a newer version. BTW, one thing I remember about 9.10 and PA is that sometimes launching the apps from a terminal worked. Yet I wouldn't get sound running from the gnome menus. Might be an environment issue with gnome-session not having access to the PA variables? Cheers, sV
Re: why oh why...
Steve Holdoway wrote: ... cant linux get it's sound sorted out properly? I've lost mine again... I know it works as I get a 'click' when a new window opens. But playing anything at all - forget it. System says everything's fine. Gnome sound preferences widget can see both the analog stereo and the usb headset, and is allegedly outputting, at volume 100% to both. alsamixer has all sane values next to it. Just no output on either device. Can anyone point me to a decent, up to date ( this is ubuntu 9.10 ) troubleshooting guide. Or start a project to provide a sane alternative to alsa... (: Cheers, Steve I dumped pa for alsa and had no probs since. What apps are you using? Barry
Re: why oh why...
Hi, Steve Holdoway wrote: Or start a project to provide a sane alternative to alsa... (: --they have. It is called pulse. Sound is one area where linux fails quite badly. Indeed, it is proof that linux is not ready for the desktop of the ordinary user. If you cannot get sound to work for you, then what hope does the ordinary person have?? The biggest failing in linux sound is the software design of sound has not realised that the box has a variable number of sound cards. yes. Variable. 1 onboard sound device built into the hardware 1 usbheadset or bluetooth device or whatever that is plugged in/out at random. The asound.conf file architecture don't cope with this. Further - requiring the user to edit this file - which has (I am told) a lisp like syntax is berserk. There is a quote on the topic of sound from someone which (paraphrased) goes like: sound - welcome to the jungle. For the uninformed: Alsa - the only advanced thing about alsa is the first letter.. - rhymes with the word ulcer. pulse - particularly useless linux sound engineers === I have been cursed with worrying about sound on a linux box for the last ten years. One project has 20 active sound channels (20 mics + 20 speakers) running at the same time. I have boxes here at home used by my family to do web serving flash/youtube. I have read comments from alsa experts on the mailing lists. The quality and helpfulness of their answers is apallingly bad. No wonder others struggle. My personal feeling is that sound on linux has improved, but there is more room for improvement. = Why did it get this bad? Cause the alsa people live in an ivory tower, and don't watch real people use real sound on computers. I think too the management of the sound software libraries on linux have been poor. Not enough time has been spent on getting things 'right'. We have invented new sound systems, rather than fixing the existing sound systems. OSS was fantastic, and worked far better for telephony than pulse/alsa. Ok, rant mode off. However, each of the statements above is true. None are hyperbola.. yes, some lucky people claim to have sound working fine. Try this simple test. put some usb headphones into the computer. head phones work? go to a flash media site - headphones work? altered your asound.conf file yet? Derek. Derek J Smithies Ph.D. Christchurch, New Zealand -- How did you make it work?? the usual, got everything right
Re: why oh why...
Steve Holdoway wrote, On 06/16/2010 09:43 AM: ... cant linux get it's sound sorted out properly? Now I have that damn nursery song in my head... over and over. Thanks, Steve. -- Craig Falconer
Re: why oh why...
On Wed, 2010-06-16 at 11:23 +1200, Craig Falconer wrote: Steve Holdoway wrote, On 06/16/2010 09:43 AM: ... cant linux get it's sound sorted out properly? Now I have that damn nursery song in my head... over and over. Thanks, Steve. Any time, young man (: Eventually, a Microsoft solution was used to get it working. Uninstall alsa and pulse audio Install the above *reboot!* Set levels And I got my headphones and usb headset working again. But why did it break in the first place??? Cheers, Steve -- Steve Holdoway st...@greengecko.co.nz http://www.greengecko.co.nz MSN: st...@greengecko.co.nz Skype: sholdowa smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
Re: why oh why...
And I got my headphones and usb headset working again. But why did it break in the first place??? I got sick of the mic on my USB webcam/mic turning off and connected a mic to the audio-in socket. It has not failed since. -- Regards, Robert -- Robert Fisher (aka - Rob, Bob, Robbie, Robbo, Fish) www.fisher.net.nz Phone: 03 383 5807 Mobile: 027 228 4698
Re: why oh why...
On Wed, 2010-06-16 at 11:23 +1200, Craig Falconer wrote: Steve Holdoway wrote, On 06/16/2010 09:43 AM: ... cant linux get it's sound sorted out properly? I see there was an update to pulseaudio on Linuxmint/Ubuntu today so that will be the end of all of your problems. He he. Rob
Re: why oh why...
On Wed, 2010-06-16 at 14:26 +1200, Robert Fisher wrote: On Wed, 2010-06-16 at 11:23 +1200, Craig Falconer wrote: Steve Holdoway wrote, On 06/16/2010 09:43 AM: ... cant linux get it's sound sorted out properly? I see there was an update to pulseaudio on Linuxmint/Ubuntu today so that will be the end of all of your problems. He he. Rob More like s/end/start/ in this case... (: Steve -- Steve Holdoway st...@greengecko.co.nz http://www.greengecko.co.nz MSN: st...@greengecko.co.nz Skype: sholdowa smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
