Some people on the #debian IRC channel gave me some useful advice regarding Debian, sound and ALSA yesterday. It seems unlikely that the advice is useful just to me. If it is good to post the advice where others can search it out later, then the relevant log extract follows. Keywords: Debian, sound, ALSA, OSS, NAS, mixer, amixer, scontrols, dsp, kernel, module, Intel, AD1981. #debian thb H (Thaddeus H. Black) #debian Blissex H (http://WWW.sabi.co.UK/) #debian asg H (Adam Garside) #debian Niki H [/whois not captured] #debian [nick1] H [actual nick unprintable] <thb> Sound problem. On my system, /dev/dsp, /dev/midi and other sound devices seem to accept sound data as normal, but the speaker produces no sound. My mixer is not zeroed. I've ALSA and NAS installed, plus Esound and Jack because other packages depend on them. If you have experience debugging Debian sound: where should I start looking for the solution, please? <asg> thb: does 'cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp' produce a horrible noise? silence? or an error? <thb> asg: thanks; stand by <thb> asg: I ran the command you suggested as root. Silence, no error, no exit until I hit ^C. <asg> thb: okay, then your mixer may be mutted irrespective of the levels <asg> thb: or your speakers are not plugged in or wired properly. <Blissex> thb: read carefully the troubleshooting, OSS comaptibility and app config sections of http://tinyurl.com/4ogk2 <thb> asg: Okay. I'll go chew on that for a while. <thb> Blissex: thank you. I will do it. <[nick1]> Blissex, you wrote this conf? <Blissex> [nick1]: yes, I did. More or less precisely for people like your and <thb>. <Niki> thb: Please run: amixer set 'Master' 'unmute' '100' and amixer set 'PCM' 'unmute' '100', the try again. <thb> Niki: understood; stand by. <thb> Niki: error message: "amixer: Unknown playback setup 'unmute'.." <Blissex> thb: swap around the "100" and "unmute". <thb> Blissex, Niki, asg: same error message after swapping. All right. Something is evidently set up wrong on my system, but you have given me some good ideas where to start looking for the solution. With these new clues, I should go away for a while now and work on the problem some more. Thank you. I may return with further questions later. <asg> thb: good luck on getting things working <Niki> thb: Goog luck! <Blissex> thb: try this more precisely: <Blissex> thb: amixer sset Master 80% unmute <Blissex> thb: some cards however do not need to have controls unmuted, so if that the case, remove the "unmute". <thb> Blissex: Hrm. Same error msg: "amixer: Unknown playback setup 'unmute'.." <Blissex> thb: to see what you can set or not, 'amixer' or 'amixer scontrols' or 'amixer scontents' <Blissex> thb: [nick1]: BTW, usually you should ask sound questions in #ALSA <thb> Blissex: didn't know about #ALSA; now I know. To answer the question about "amixer scontrols", it replies normally: it lists five simple mixer controls: Master, Synth, Line, CD, Mic. <Blissex> thb: you may have one of those cards without mute/unmute then. <thb> Blissex: my sound chip is very common: AD1981, included on millions of recent Intel boards. There is nothing unusual about it. <Blissex> thb: are you using the 'snd-intel8x0' driver though? <thb> Blissex: yes. Hard-compiled into the kernel; not a module. <Blissex> thb: BTW ALSA should not be really compiled in the kernel, there may be problems if it is done like that. <thb> Blissex: wow! That, I did not know. Very good. <Blissex> thb: also have a look here: http://alsa.opensrc.org/intel8x0 and the 8x0 subsection of http://tinyurl.com/4ogk2 I am not subscribed to debian-user, so please e-mail me directly if you want to reach me over this.
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