A question about how to ask a question
Hi list,
My question is about... how to best ask a question! That is because I
have the feeling I am not asking it in the best possible way.
I have a problem with my sound setup. I tried many different things, to
no avail, so I thought I would ask for help on an appropriate mailing
list. I have done my best to follow the usual advices: explain the
problem clearly, give details about your setup, say what you tried and
why it does not work, and so on. Yet, I asked the question on alsa-user
mailing list (see http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.user/37173)
and later on this list (see
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2013/02/msg00856.html), and got no
answer.
Let me make it clear: I do not expect that every single question will
receive a complete and satisfactory answer. I know this is open source,
people answer if they want to and have time. I do not blame anybody for
not answering me. But still, I am a bit surprised that not a single
reader on these two lists had a single idea to help me, get me somehow
on the path, perhaps simply by suggesting something I could try or some
documentation I could read. Therefore, I am wondering if my question is
perhaps somehow incorrectly phrased, or incomplete?
So, the object of this very post is not to ask the question about my
sound setup again, but rather to ask your opinion about why I did not
get any answer, and if I could do something (like phrasing it
differently, or adding or removing details) to improve my chances to get
an answer. Or perhaps I should ask the question on a different
mailing-list? The original question follows.
Thanks.
Olivier
Original question:
Hi list,
My graphic card is connected through HDMI to my screen. I get no sound,
and no error messages: sounds seem to play correctly, according to
software, but I hear none. As if something was muted, though I checked
alsamixer ten times and activated everything I could.
I use a debian wheezy up to date. On the same computer, but a different
OS (Ubuntu 10.04), sound works. I may have changed something to make it
work, but I don’t remember.
From aplay -L, AFAIU, alsa recognises three cards, namely default (plays
to pulseaudio), some ATI SB card and my Radeon card that I want to make
work.
When I play to the Radeon card (using aplay -vv -D
"plug:'hdmi:CARD=Generic,DEV=0'") I hear no sound, though everything
seems to work.
When I play to the other sound card ("sysdefault:CARD=SB"), connected to
analog headphones, it works.
When I play to the default card, I can see through pavucontrol that
pulse audio receives sound, but I can hear nothing.
alsa-info is at
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=10570aee7a643a6a7a6e0ac2f44918d834133312
. Below, some
supplementary details.
Any idea what I could try? Or where I could look for differences which
may explain why it works on Ubuntu and not on Debian?
(supplementary technical details snipped)
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