[gentoo-user] Help getting my new loudspeakers working, please!

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Gentoo.

I've finally got around to buying a pair of new loadspeakers for my new
(as of 2024-08) PC.  The experience has not been relaxed and obvious.

I have connected the speakers up physically.  I have made the necessary
settings in the kernel configuration, rebuilt and rebooted into it.  So
far, so good.

Then I attempt to use alsamixer to unmute the speakers and, hopefully get
some sound out of them.  This is where my problems start.

alsamixer displays just one object, labelled S/PDIF in the middle of the
screen.  I don't have an S/PDIF connection, just an ordinary audio cable
with a green 3.5 mm jack plug at each end.

How do I configure alsamixer to show me appropriate things, such as
volume settings and so on.

I've tried following https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/ALSA, but it is most
unhelpful.  It describes in detail a few complicated setups, presumably
for those who understand the basics and want such a setup.  It doesn't
say how to get a simple configuration, such as my own, working.

I have a /etc/asound.conf file set up, as suggested in the above doc, as:

    defaults.pcm.!card Generic
    defaults.pcm.!device 0
    defaults.pcm.!ctl Generic

..

Before I spend hours reading documentation, could some kind person
familiar with these things perhaps give me a tip to getting my speakers
working.

Setting up loudspeakers shouldn't be this difficult.

Thanks in advance for any help!

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).