Re: A question about how to ask a question
On 3/10/13, Olivier Cailloux <olivier.cailloux@gmail.com> wrote:
> My question is about... how to best ask a question! That is because I
...
> Original question:
> Hi list,
>
> 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.
* I reader, cannot be sure if your problem is simply a sound problem,
or a sound-through-hdmi problem. I don't have a hdmi connection I
could even test (I use a laptop with a displayport and vga port). So
(artificial example only) I don't want to step in ... I could well
make a useless suggestion or get "caught" by your lack of
clarity/assumption, or you could be more technically competant, and
since you're talking hdmi, you already know more than I do... example
only.
* Short version: you did not specify whether you are trying to get
sound to go through your HDMI cable. (I just have a line out on my
laptop which I use, for example.)
> and no error messages:
* Here, you do not say where you looked for error messages. Did you
check syslog, did you check the docs for the sound player you are
using to find out if it logs errors to some file somewhere?
* You see, when you say "[I got] no error messages" it's still
anybody's guess as how competant you are, or if you have truly made an
effort yourself, or not.
> sounds seem to play correctly, according to
> software, but I hear none.
* Did you check your cable is plugged in? You did not say whether you
checked basic things.
> As if something was muted, though I checked
> alsamixer ten times and activated everything I could.
* You are expressing frustration here. Many people do this (see my
most recent email an hour or so ago for an example), but it's not
useful. "I checked ten times" could easily be an exaggeration -
implying you might be an emotional "hot potato".
> I use a debian wheezy up to date. On the same computer, but a different
> OS (Ubuntu 10.04), sound works.
* This ought to be useful information - but mostly for you to test.
You haven't said if you used a dual-boot or a live-cd of Ubuntu. 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.
* 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?"
> I may have changed something to make it
> work, but I don’t remember.
* This is a key datapoint for those who might be inclined to help you.
If you don't remember, you need to go back and test it.
* In other words, you appear to be being lazy, and instead of doing
the tests that you know you can and should do, you are hoping for a
quick-easy answer from someone else. It's fine to want that, but if
you don't get it, you need to go and do more work.
* So, there's a great next step for you - get your Ubuntu installation
working again, and that pathway should remind you of whether you did
anything to make it work, or not, and then report back. That way you
are doing what you can, and not demonstrating laziness (you may not
mean to be lazy, but that's what you seem to be saying...).
> 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.
* Again, you had it working on Ubuntu, so go and test this same
command on your Ubuntu installation. Freedom does not mean free of
effort.
> 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.
* This sounds to me like you might have a pulseaudio configuration
problem - seems obvious, so what have you tested along these lines.
Perhaps you didn't think to check? Or perhaps you simply didn't
provide that information in your email?
HTH
Zenaan
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