- Q: Which audio/sound apps can I use?
A: See "Install packages .." in SoundConfiguration
- Q: Should I choose ["OSSFree"], ["ALSA"] or ["OSSLinux"] soundcard drivers?
A: ["OSSFree"] is free, but supported soundcards and features are the least. ["ALSA"] is growing fast, with features such as full duplex, digital I/O etc, but new users may find it difficult to configure. ["OSSLinux"] is a commercial binary, closed-source implementation by 4Front Technologies. Need $. Cards can be auto-detected and there is a nice user interface. --?CyberWorker
Q: Is there an introductory article anywhere that can explain what all the various pieces of the Linux sound "architecture" are; that is, what drivers are needed, what is a mixer and how many of those do I need installed, what is OSS (?OpenSoundSystem), what is ["ALSA"], etc?
A: I'll introduce "The Book of Linux Sound and Music" to you, which is by No Starch Press and Linux Journal Press. It contains much useful information about Linux sound and music. --?CyberWorker
OSS is the ?OpenSoundSystem, which has been in the Kernel for ages already. It works with sound modules, and there was a non-free extension to support soundcards whose support in the kernel was weak. ["ALSA"] supports more hardware. How difficult it is to set up depends if your card supports plug and play or if you have to find the irqs by hand. I had the kernel-source installed and then alsa-source, compiling it with the kernel-package. That worked brillantly for my ["SBLive"].
Q: How do I check which of OSS (?OpenSoundSystem), ["ALSA"], etc I have installed?
- A:
- Q: How do I tell which other program is using /dev/dsp?
A: One of these:
/bin/fuser -v /dev/dsp /usr/sbin/lsof||grep dsp
- General guidelines on getting sound to work
If an audio app works running as root and not as another user, see "use 'adduser. .. audio' " in SoundConfiguration
If the app gives vague error messages, then installing an app which gives more detailed error messages such as xmms may help (see below). When you get it all working, please update this page with the specific error messages & symptoms, to help other people who search for these details.
Note to developers: it's helpful to remember that the easier it is to get an app running, particularly the first time after installation, the more likely the user is to start & keep on using your app. There are plenty of alternative apps! Having more detailed error messages (see xmms below) is extremely helpful to newer, as well as more experienced, users. Even experienced users won't be knowledgable in every speciality. OK, if you're developing an audio app, your audio infrastructure will already be set up, so looking here and in SoundConfiguration will give a good indication of alternative things which may need setting before the app will work fully. It helps to have both detailed error messages in the code and guidance in the FAQ etc. Some useful example messages to distinguish: device /dev/x does not exist; device /dev/dsp does not have write permissions for this user; device /dev/dsp is in use by another program ...
- Q: How do I do a basic low-level test of my soundcard?
A: set the volume fairly low and as root and as another user (if the quality is poor, the .wav file could be in the wrong endian):
cat example.wav >/dev/dsp cat example.wav >/dev/dsp1
- Specific apps:
Q: xmms gives a dialog box with:
Please check that: 1. You have the correct output plugin selected. 2. No other programs is/are blocking the soundcards. 3. Your soundcard is configured properly.
A: run it from a terminal, where it gives more helpful detailed messages eg:
WARNING: oss_open(): Failed to open audio device (/dev/dsp): Device or resource busy WARNING: oss_open(): Failed to open audio device (/dev/dsp): Permission denied See ["SoundConfiguration"] for details on fixing these.
Q: mpg321 gives:
libao - OSS cannot set rate to 44100 Can't find a suitable libao driver. (Is device in use?)
- A: Try apt-get install libsamplerate0
["1"]
Q: mpg321 gives:
Can't find a suitable libao driver. (Is device in use?), or Can't open libao driver with device /dev/dsp (is device in use?)
A: See "use 'adduser. .. audio' " in SoundConfiguration
- Q: I have installed a new linux kernel and suddenly my alsa sound does not work.
- A: If you install a new kernel version you also need to install the corresponding alsa-modules version.
A: If you installed a 2.6 kernel for the first time, consider what smokybobo wrote at [http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/2/2003/10/2/102295 Linuxquestions.org]. In addition, consider running 'alsamixer' and unmute the channels you need and set them to an appropriate volume. Make sure you set the option to saving the mixer settings across reboots in the alsa-base configuration. At that point, e.g. XMMS should work with the output plugin ALSA. If you are running KDE and you want it's sound effects as well, you may have to tell it's aRts server explicitely to use ALSA. In that case, you'll have to set the output plugin for XMMS to aRts. --DavidAndel
A: I had installed a kernel image of 2.6.5-4 and found that coupled with the direction in the link above and an upgrade to 2.6.6-1, I had ALSA support in all of my applications. Also, if you have multiple capture cards (bttv, other tuner, radio card), try "cat /proc/asound/cards" to verify that your capture card is where you expect it. For my system, the tv card registered as card 0 and a SB Live! came up as card 1. --?EricZavesky
Related Links: SoundConfiguration