Apologies if this looks like a set of dumb questions. In fact it IS a set of dumb questions, to which I cannot seem to get answers on either the OpenSuSE or Audacity forums.
I'm creating a long track record of no success in using Audacity on a hardware setup which I have converted from Win XP to SuSE 11. I previously had been using Audacity for some years on this hardware under Win XP. (For those with infinite patience the problem is that I can record, about 95% of the time, but can playback only about 1% of the time. The output level meters show that I have made a valid recording but there is no output on my speakers. The system will play audio CDs, outside of Audacity). Others have directed me to check my mixer settings with alsamixer. This utility confusee me no end and has given rise to many questions, all of which must be hard, because I can't get an answers. . If I invoke alsamixer with the simple command 'alsamixer' (no parameters), in either user or root status, I get a DOS like screen showing information for (among other items) something called 'CARD' with content 'PulseAudio'. What does 'card' mean? Why is PulseAudio involved? I thought I was using ALSA? There is also an item called 'chip', also with content 'PulseAudio'. What chip is this? What do I do with this 'card' and 'chip' information? In 'Playback' mode one recording level bar, labelled 'Master' is displayed. I am able to set volume levels here and use the M-key toggle but can do nothing more. Is this the equivalent of the playback volume control under Windows? If I tab into 'Capture' mode one recording level bar, labelled 'Capture' is displayed. I am able to set volume levels here, and the space bar toggle is effective; the M-key toggle is not. What exactly is this 'Capture' device? Is this the equivalent of the recording volume control under Windows? Irrespective of where I set the levels in these 2 modes, or whether I select 'Capture' as a recording device or not, I am unable to playback any recordings in Audacity - even after loading project files recorded under Windows. This is all in great contrast to the 'other' Alsamixer which is available to me - invoked by issuing the command 'alsamixer -c 0' (just as an aside, the alsamixer man pages and help information have been unable to explain to me, in a way that I can understand, how to set the parameters for -D option. I have tried more than 200 combinations of strings of alpha-numerics to follow -D, but have found nothing that is acceptable to alsamixer - not even those that by fortuitous circumstance turn out to be an obscene permutation of Western characters. Is this some sort of virility check, to qualify ones-self to be a real alsa user?) Invoked in this way alsamixer now shows 'Card' as CA0106 - what is this? And what happened to the previous entry of 'PulseAudio'? 'Chip' is now shown as blank. Does his mean that alsamixer cannot detect it in this mode? What happened to the previous setting of 'PulseAudio'? A wide variety of device volume controls is now displayed, including a device called IEC958. In terms of my sound card (Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 24 bit 7.1 card - a widely used, entry level consumer quality sound card, designed in the 90s) I have absolutely no idea what this device it. This is the only device on which the M-toggle is effective. The space bar toggle is not effective on any device in any mode (Playback, Capture, All). No master volume control is displayed. Some times, after fiddling with this version of alsamizer (in an entirely random fashion) Audacity will 'see' a playback device called ALSA dmix. If I select this device then I can playback recorded sounds. I have no idea what this device is or where Audacity finds it. Out of about 100 recording attempts over the last 3 weeks, this playback device option has appeared only 2 times. This number is too low for me to correlate it with any specific setting in the second version of alsamixer. The other recording and playback devices identified with Audacity - with names of the form CA0106: CA0106 (hw:0,0) - bear no relationship, in my mind, to the hardware features on my sound card - like 'Line In' or 'Mic' or 'Line Out'. I have no idea what those esoteric and generic names mean. Even worse, the second version of alsamizer lists devices called IEC958 something or other or 'i2s in'. I have no idea what the devices are or if I should use them. The bottom line is that the evidence I have found so far suggests either that alsa cannot recognise my very common sound card, or cannot co-exist with Audacity in OpenSuSE 11 or both. Is there a 3rd version of alsamixer, invokable in some other way, which will fix this? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored by: SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards: VOTE NOW! 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