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On Tuesday, 28 April 2020 15:21:09 BST Mark Knecht wrote: |
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> On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 6:51 AM Peter Humphrey <peter@××××××××××××.uk> |
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> OK, so card 0 is using snd_hda_intel. Card 0 is most likely the default |
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> location that sound is going. Blacklisting it will help. That said you have |
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> 2 USB devices so we need to be careful about extra confusion there. For |
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> simplicity you might just unplug the webcam (if you can - if this is a |
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> built-in in a laptop then I understand you have limitations.) |
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> > Nope. No pulseaudio. |
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> |
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> What is the output of pulseaudio at the command line? |
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Not found. |
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> Or maybe just no pluseaudio tools, or whatever it's called on Gentoo |
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> assuming it's a separate package. I'm no longer running Gentoo (I just find |
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> this list the best place to get real info) A quick google for pavucontrol |
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> suggests you can emerge media-sound/pavucontrol to get it. |
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Do I need it? I have sound without it. To install it I'd have to set the |
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pulseaudio USE flag; then emerge -uaDvN @world would reinstall 19 packages and |
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install 10 new ones. |
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> Use KDE systemsettings, search for sound, choose 'Multimedia', Under 'Audio |
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> Volume' what do you see? What device is set as default? (This part of |
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> systemsettings is very similar to pavucontrol but it doesn't give you the |
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> VU meters which are nicely visible to see what apps are generating audio. |
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KDE system settings have changed since your day, Mark; there's now no |
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reference to the hardware at all under Multimedia; only CDDB. There's no |
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useful USE flag on it. |
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> > Third, I haven't any alsa packages installed, except for alsamixer which I |
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> > installed to help with this problem (it didn't). There's no starting or |
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> > stopping alsa; KDE seems to have what it needs without alsa specifically. |
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> > That's why I had no asound.conf; it's also why I rebooted instead of doing |
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> > something less heavy handed. Then again, why do I need an asound.conf? |
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> |
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> No. The fact that you can cat "/proc/asound" asound being "Alsa Sound" says |
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> Alsa is running. Alsa talks to your sound card hardware and provides a |
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> "single application" interface to the sound cards. Pulseaudio provides a |
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> mixer so that multiple apps can all send sound to your hardware. |
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To clarify: |
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prh@peak ~ $ eix -Ic alsa |
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[I] media-libs/alsa-lib (1.2.2{tbz2}@22/04/20): Advanced Linux Sound |
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Architecture Library |
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prh@peak ~ $ eix -Ic audio |
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[I] media-libs/audiofile (0.3.6-r3(0/1){tbz2}@11/04/20): An elegant API for |
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accessing audio files |
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I can already send sound from several apps at once to the hardware - at least, |
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I could with the built-in Intel hardware. Time will tell how the USB device |
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fares. I think KDE must use media-libs/alsa-lib directly. It must be doing a |
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lot of work under the bonnet. |
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> I personally don't think you need asound.conf until you prove that you have |
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> a need to do some sort of non-standard configuration. That _might_ be |
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> defining a different default card but KDE can do that for you in system |
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> settings so my recommendation is no asound.conf for now. Use KDE as it's |
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> intended and (over the long run) I think it's more maintainable. However, |
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> you are completely free to use your system any way you want. |
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Thanks for your help. |
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-- |
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Regards, |
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Peter. |