On Wed, 2006-03-01 at 23:07 +0100, David Kastrup wrote: > Lee Revell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > On Wed, 2006-03-01 at 22:32 +0100, David Kastrup wrote: > >> What happens now if I do > >> aplay -D spdif something.wav > >> ? Most certainly not the soundcard with the S/PDIF output gets used. > >> Instead some nonsense happens. > > > > That can't ever work because we don't have enough information about > > all the supported devices to definitively say device $FOO has SPDIF > > and device $BAR doesn't. Lots of devices look like they have SPDIF > > to the driver but it's not wired up to anything. Etc. > > > > Solving this problem in the way you suggest would require the ALSA > > developers having all the details about the hardware that the people > > who write the Windows drivers do. This is not going to happen > > anytime soon. > > I am not asking for a solution. I am asking for a clue. The man page > to aplay does not mention what a PCM actually is. It just tells you > to list them with -L. It does not mention that you can just tack a :1 > after it to specify a different sound card. It does not bother to > mention that the PCM list from -L is basically static and not > depending on the actual available sound card capabilities, applies in > this form only and exclusively to the default sound card, and can be > used for other sound cards by tacking on little cute suffixes like :1. > > This sort of stuff is simply undocumented anywhere close to where it > would be used. I have not been able to find it, and I asked man > pages, general ALSA documentation, HOWTOs and Google. >
If someone wants to set up an "ALSA mini HOWTO wiki" I'll start the content, by adding the info from this thread. But it can't stay a Wiki because those fill up with misinformation or extraneous information eventually - when it's done we'll publish it as a static HOWTO. Lee
