Re: Soundblaster Silent on Reboot

[Hal Vaughan <hal@thresholddigital.com>]

On Friday 09 December 2005 07:25 pm, Colin wrote:
> Hal Vaughan wrote:
> > But there are no alsa commands and aptitude lists alsa-base and alsa-util
> > as uninstalled.  This has been working fine without it up until now. 
> > While, as I've said, it could be hardware, isn't it a bit of a puzzle
> > that Alsa isn't installed?  I used the Sarge Net-Install and did not use
> > any extra package groups like "Desktop" and only installed a few packages
> > later, like ssh, rsync, and a few other utils that help on a server. 
> > Since then I installed flac, crip, cdcd, and aumix and have been using it
> > to rip CDs to flac.  Alsa was not installed as a dependent package for
> > any of them.
>
> You've probably been using ALSA's OSS simulation all this time (the
> snd_pcm_oss kernel module).  I'd install the alsa-utils package (which
> should pull in the alsa-base package too) and use alsamixer (or
> alsamixergui if X is running) to set the volume levels.  If the programs
> you use support it, I try and get them to use their ALSA sound capabilities
> as well.

I've added alsa-base, which requires alsa-utilities, as well.  One person 
pointed out, off list, that with alsa, I can save the settings with "alsactl 
store" and it will restore the settings automatically on reboot.

I ended up, for other reasons (problems with a RAID, posted in another 
thread), swapping the motherboard in this system with another one.  It's all 
working now -- with one exception.  The new motherboard has a built-in sound 
card.  Now it has both the motherboard soundcard and my Soundblaster.  The 
one thing alsactl does not seem to store for default setting on reboot is 
which sound card I've selected.  It's not in the man page, either.

So if anyone knows how I can tell Alsa to save the Soundblaster as the default 
card and NOT the built in motherboard one, it'll be working perfectly.  (I 
can even remove the @reboot cron job I had w/ aumix to set the levels.)

If it matters, this system does not have any form of X or XFree86 installed.

Thanks!

Hal