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Re: Could somebody PLEASE help with an Alsa problem?



On Thu, Sep 20, 2007 at 11:00:36 +0100, Barry Samuels wrote:
> I've been struggling with this for days without getting anywhere. I've 
> done endless searches and made some previous postings without any 
> useful results.
> 
> Debian Testing up to date as of today.
> Kernel 2.6.22.6 plus alsa modules
> 
> What is really irritating is that if I boot the same machine using a 
> Knoppix v5 live CD it all works properly.

That is a good sign because it means that Linux does support your
hardware. It would be cause for concern if Knoppix did not manage to get
the card working.
 
> Playback seems to work but recording does not.
> 
> If I record my voice using the microphone the result is of rather low 
> volume accompanied by an obvious hiss or hum and something that sounds 
> like a motorbike engine.

The first thing we need to know is the model of your sound card. Post
the output of

lspci | egrep -i 'audio|s(ou)?nd|media'

As the next step I would simply compare the Knoppix (audio) setup to
your normal installation. For a start I would like to see the output of
the following three commands

uname -a

lsmod | grep snd

cat /dev/sndstat

for both Knoppix and your Lenny system.

> If I try to record using my USB record turntable with Audacity the 
> resulting sound is very choppy but Knoppix does it perfectly.

That might be some sort of kernel latency or USB throughput problem. You
could try to compile a new kernel for your Debian system, using the
configuration file - and maybe also the source package - of the Knoppix
kernel.
 
> I noticed that when using Knoppix the sound devices listed in Audacity 
> are /dev/dsp, dsp1 and dsp2 but running my normal operating system I 
> get names like 'ALSA: HDA Intel ALC882 Analog (hw:0,0)'

I never used Audacity so I cannot comment on that. I think it is better
to try to diagnose and fix driver problems using command line tools.
 
> Can anyone suggest a course of action?

-- 
Regards,            | http://users.icfo.es/Florian.Kulzer
          Florian   |



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