[vox-tech] Help please with alsa sound

[Trevor M. Lango]

> At 07:47 AM 6/13/2004, you wrote:
> >Some random suggestions:
> >
> >* Try turning off "Load volumes on login" in KDE's Control
> >   Center mixer settings, and using alsamixer only.  KDE's
> >   mixer does not always understand what to do.
> Thanks Rob:
> 
> Any idea what "Load volumes on login" does?  - OR is supposed to do?

When you specify a volume perhaps the following way:

    amixer set Master 100 unmute
    amixer set PCM 100 unmute

Then selecting the "Load volumes on login" will ensure that no matter how 
you adjust the volume during your session, the next time you load up kde 
the volumes will be restored to whatever they were right before you 
selected that option.

> I have been hammering on this all nite.  Sound is still unstable, but 
less 
> so.  I can get Realplayer to work by booting it with "artsdsp realplay" 
> first and having it open.   Other clues seem to be:
> Must use PCM, must not use IEC958 Capture Monitor, no other setting on 
KMIX 
> or Alsa Mixer matter.  Nothing controls volume, and you had better be 
root. 
> No luck as a user. The open sound Alsa driver seems to work.

You have to make sure that your user account(s) are in the 'audio' 
group...?

> However,  the general environment KDE sounds seem to come and go of some 
> unknown setting,  the bell works sometimes.  Sound seems to be a mystery.
> 
> Does anyone have any other clues.  I am running Jonathan's latest Gentoo 
on 
> a new fast p4,256M white box.
> 
> Thanks, Dick  


Here is how I got sound working on my gentoo machine:

1. build a 2.6+ kernel with alsa as modules - don't include any of the OSS 
stuff - its deprecated.

2. emerge alsa, alsa-utils, and arts.

3. edit '/etc/modules/alsa' appropriately.

4. make sure all users you want access to sound are in the 'audio' group.

5. execute the following commands: 'amixer set Master 100 unmute' 
and 'amixer set PCM 100 unmute' (note: 100 for PCM will probably make it 
ridiculously loud)

6. at this point, in a terminal, you should be able to hear something when 
you execute the following 
command: 'aplay /usr/kde/3.2/share/sounds/pop.wav'

6. you probably also want to do a 'rc-update add alsasound boot'

7. in kde, under 'sound & multimedia -> sound system' set the 'audio 
device' to 'autodetect'

I'm writing this (quickly) at work... so I may have missed something.  I 
am assuming (and recommending) that you read the following (if not 
already) as I pretty much just paraphrased it: 
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml#alsa-utils


- Trevor