Re: A question about how to ask a question
On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 23:24:45 +0100
Olivier Cailloux <olivier.cailloux@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> My graphic card is connected through HDMI to my screen. I get no
> >> sound,
> > * You have not said where your speakers are. There is an implication
> > that the speakers are in your monitor, but this is not clear.
> Yes indeed, my speakers are in my monitor, but I did not mention that
> because I had absolutely no idea that it could possibly matter. Does
> it?
It might very well do. Embedding digital sound into an HDMI stream is
an additional activity which does not occur with normal sound
hardware, and may need some kind of enabling or switching. I suspect
much of the lack of response is due to very few other people doing
that. The vast majority of Debian users will still be connecting their
monitors using VGA, and their speakers, if any, by audio cables or at
most USB. The only computer I have which *must* put its sound into HDMI
is a Raspberry Pi, and I have no idea how it does that.
So I can't solve your problem, but I may be able to help a little.
People are reluctant to reply if they have no relevant experience at
all.
> > I am
> > not technical enough to tell you what files to compare. But I've
> > heard of "asound.rc" or maybe it is "asoundrc" (don't remember
> > sorry), so you could hunt google for that, and Ubuntu/Debian, and
> > compare the files between the two OSs. But you have NOT taken
> > advantage of this to do more research yourself yet.
> Well, I did. I have not mentionned it (but maybe I should have)
> because I did not want to make my post even longer and because it
> should work without these files. I checked for existence of any
> "*asound*" files in my Ubuntu install: there is no. In debian, none
> either. So I thought that’s not somewhere to search further.
>
> The troubleshooting guide for alsa mentions that these files should
> not be used in a working install (see Warning here:
> http://alsa.opensrc.org/.asoundrc): "If your system won't work
> without [these files], and you are running the most current version
> of ALSA, you probably should file a bug report."
What you didn't quote is the first sentence of the warning:
"Neither .asoundrc or /etc/asound.conf is normally required."
'Normally' here means (and I know this for certain) 'having a very
uncomplicated system'. It means one and only one sound device, and I
suspect that even then, it means on-board sound or a SoundBlaster.
My server had on-board sound, which usually got designated 'card0', and
I used an external USB device, usually 'card1'. This most certainly did
require a configuration file. I would expect your computer to have at
least two sound devices, and if the HDMI one is being identified as
something other than card0, you will need to specify what device you
actually use.
Note that a different OS running on the same hardware may designate
sound devices differently, and indeed my old server would sometimes
reverse the card order after a reboot, just to give me something to do.
> >
> > * When you have an apparent known pathway for helping yourself, and
> > you have not taken it, that should be taken by you first.
> >
> > * If you do not know what to look for, and are unwilling to google
> > it, you could ask the question, eg "Can someone please advise which
> > files I can compare, between the Ubuntu and Debian, so I can find
> > out why my Debian sound does not work?"
> Well, the Ubuntu install is much older than Debian, thus there is
> likely many differences on the file level (the driver is older, alsa
> version is older, even the kernel is probably a different version,
> etc.). I very much doubt that comparing both installs is the most
> efficient way to solve the problem. Or course I could take it step by
> step, replace each pieces in Ubuntu that are different than in
> Debian. I would maybe finally find out where the problem lies. So you
> may say I did not do it because of laziness. But this would be
> absurdly time consuming, without even any guarantee to find out where
> the problem is after all.
>
And sound in Linux is so damned complicated that you may not find
comparable files at all.
> Or course, if one place no upper bound on the time one is ready to
> devote to solve a problem, one can probably almost always solve it
> (after all, I could learn how to program in low level C and look at
> the source code). But the point of asking for help is to save time
> when it becomes clear that it is unlikely the poster will be able to
> solve the problem within a reasonable time frame by himself, it seems
> to me.
>
> Not that I’m trying to justify all sorts of laziness here. I do have
> tried to find a solution by myself and have looked in various
> directions. It’s just that there’s a middle ground to be found...
I've come to the conclusion that there's no alternative to finding out
how the sound system works at least at a basic level, though sadly this
changes every few years, which makes locating current information on
the Net quite difficult. It's also a couple of years since I last did
it, so I can't remember much, but a good place to start poking around
is /proc/asound, which shouldn't vary too much between OSes of the
same parentage.
>
> To summarize, even though I do not agree with all your comments, it
> definitely gives some ideas on how to improve my question. So thank
> you for your answer once again.
>
> On the negative side, though, if I understand you well enough, you
> seem to suggest I should start by working approximately at least
> three full days non stop on that question (supplementary to the time
> I spent already) before I get the right to ask the question and not
> being considered lazy because of the remaining things I did not try
> (like reinstalling Ubuntu to see if sound works out of the box, or
> changing the existing install piece by piece). If that is the case,
> then it is a bit disappointing, IMHO. I thought mailing lists were
> there to help people solve problems within a reasonable time frame.
>
You seem to be assuming that somebody reading this group/list does
actually know the answer from recent personal experience, and that is
less likely than usual to be the case with sound. We do have a very
knowledgable sound person usually here, but his sytem is complex and is
unlikely to resemble yours in any useful way.
--
Joe
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