Alsa configuration
I'm running the Debian testing distribution on a Shuttle
small-form-factor box that is based on the Nvidia Nforce2 chipset.
I finally managed to get my discover configuration set up so that the
OSS audio drivers are blacklisted and I can load the snd-intel8x0 ALSA
driver successfully. I am still unclear about configuring ALSA however.
I am running the Debian kernel 2.6.7-1-k7 and my speaker system is the
Cambridge Soundworks DTS3300 Digital 5.1 surround sound, which is
connected through an optical S/PDIF interface.
I have the alsa-base and alsa-utils packages installed. The output from
lsmod includes.
Module Size Used by
snd_mixer_oss 19904 0
snd_intel8x0 36140 0
snd_ac97_codec 69572 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_pcm 97508 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_timer 25540 1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 11720 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
gameport 4736 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_mpu401_uart 8000 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_rawmidi 25408 1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device 8264 1 snd_rawmidi
snd 56932 8
snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
soundcore 10400 1 snd
I am also running devfs and the /dev/snd directory is populated with a
large number of devices. The /dev/adspX, /dev/amixerX, etc. devices
also show up.
The contents of /proc/asound indicate that the card is being picked up
% cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [nForce2 ]: NFORCE - NVidia nForce2
NVidia nForce2 at 0xec081000, irq 20
% cat /proc/asound/pcm
00-00: Intel ICH : NVidia nForce2 : playback 1 : capture 1
00-01: Intel ICH - MIC ADC : NVidia nForce2 - MIC ADC : capture 1
00-02: Intel ICH - IEC958 : NVidia nForce2 - IEC958 : playback 1
I have run both /usr/sbin/alsaconf and alsamixer to ensure that the
devices are unmuted.
With XMMS I can select the PCM output device to be hw:0,2 and can play
ogg files over the speaker system. However, I have been unable to
configure either xine or mplayer to play an AC3 5.1 audio stream for a
movie under this configuration.
I see that /usr/share/alsa/cards/NFORCE.conf defines aliases such as
surround51 but I'm not sure that this is ever being sourced. At least I
don't see such devices when configuring sound applications.
In the file /usr/share/doc/alsa-base/README.Debian there is a suggestion
2) A configuration example for version 0.9/1.0 of ALSA is in
/usr/share/doc/alsa-base/examples/modules-1.0.conf, which should be
installed into /etc/alsa/modutils/1.0.
but I don't have a directory /usr/share/doc/alsa-base/examples/ and it
is not installed by the package
ii alsa-base 1.0.5a-1 ALSA sound driver common files
I would appreciate suggestions. Please cc: me on replies.
Reply to: