[gentoo-user] Re: rhythmbox plays silently

[Michael Schmarck]

Hal Martin <hal.martin <at> gmail.com> writes:

>
> Michael Schmarck wrote:
> > Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Now, onto your actual problem. It is exceptionally hard to even attempt
> >> to provide a solution unless someone else fixed the exact same problem
> >> before, as you have not provided any configuration at all and very
> >> little useful information.
> >>
> >
> > What would you have wanted to see? I wrote that sound works. You
> > don't need more information.
> >
> >
> >> Hence your post was as much noise as mine
> >> was.
> >>
> >
> > That's why other people, or at least Andrey, was able to help, where as
> > you were just a moron.
> >
> Not to dig up this unpleasantness again, but there are some things I'd
> like to point out for future reference (for all people, including me,
> who will post questions with hopes of getting useful answers.)
> >
> >> Nonetheless I shall try, so please provide the following:
> >>
> >
> > How nice from you, now that the problem has been solved.
> >
> Yes, I'm aware that this particular problem has been solved, however I'd
> still like to highlight a few things about it.
> >
> >> 1. the output of lspci as it relates to audio so we can see what
> >> hardware you have
> >>
> >
> > Why should that matter? After all, sound playback works (in other
> > programs).
> >
> It doesn't matter, but it's information people care about.

Fine. Do you also care about the size of my shoes? It's a german
46 - and yes, I *do* think, that it is just as important. :)

> It helps us
> to do our voodoo stuff and get back to you with an answer (it's quantity
> over quality at this point of the answering stage.)
> >
> >> 2. What engine does rhythmbox use? gstreamer? If so, do other gstreamer
> >> apps work correctly on your box?
> >>
> >
> > That was the million dollar question.
> >
> Great, and now you've noticed that Totem, another GStreamer program,
> isn't outputting sound. Therefore, instead of just blowing off the
> previous poster, you could actually include that information.

You mean Alan? He hasn't been helpful at all. I don't see, why such
people should not be blown off.

First he tried to be "funny" with his snide KDE remark. Then he
wrote non-helpful (and as it turned out: wrong) comments about
some non-existant circular dependencies. And he also failed to
correctly read the gst-plugins-meta ebuild. No, he was not helpful
at all.

> >
> >> 3. With what options did you compile rhythmbox and gstreamer (if
> >> applicable)?
> >>
> >
> > Does not matter.
> >
> Actually, it does.

No, it does not. It doesn't have any USE flags that would matter
there.

Anyway, it's been compiled with these flags:

[ebuild   R   ] media-sound/rhythmbox-0.11.2-r1  USE="-daap dbus -debug -doc 
-flac hal -ipod -keyring libnotify -lirc mad -musicbrainz python tagwriting 
vorbis" 3,454 kB 

No, there's no important information. As I said, rb was able to play
the file. There just wasn't any sound.

> Contrary to your belief that programs have the
> ability to read your mind

Just don't assume that I'm doing that, just because you're so naive.

> and compile with all the flags they need to
> function in every foreseeable way, real world applications need flags.

Oh, really? Tell news! But you know what, rb doesn't need any additional
flags. And you already knew that.

> Posting them with your question allows for the quantity of answers to go
> down, while the quality of the remaining ones to improve greatly.
> Knowing from the beginning that you compiled GStreamer with -oss but not
> alsa would've helped greatly.

What? I have alsa set. And -oss. But this information was not necessary,
because the problem was caused by the "bug" that rb used to depend on
gst-plugins-base and that -base used to have alsa/oss/what-not use flags.
That's no longer the case. Instead applications now need to depend on
gst-plugins-meta - and that's the case with rhythmbox of Gnome 2.22.

> >> 4. Lastly, this is out on left field, please confirm that rhythmbox is
> >> indeed using alsa and not oss
> >>
> >
> > Question 2 covers that.
> >
> No, it doesn't.

Yes, it does.

> You just deferred your answer instead of actually
> confirming that the rhythmbox *engine* used either ALSA or OSS.

Because it doesn't matter. rb uses gst. gst may use either engine.
No engine was installed. Reason: Missing dependencies (but that's
rectified in rhythmbox 2.22, per what Marduk wrote).

> > Michael
> >
> >
> Not trying to start a flame war between anywhere here, but I'm just
> trying to make a point. Posting information, no matter how useless it
> may seem to you, helps us help you. For example,

No, that's not good. Only relevant information should be posted.
It's no good to "flood" people (or "supporters") with unrelated
and not important information. Instead, it's good to only send 
important information.

> Again, not trying to restart any disagreements previously stemming from
> this topic, I'm just trying to establish a clear method for reporting
> problems so that we cut out all the "guess work" on the part of the
> person answering the question.

I posted all the relevant information. So I really don't see what
you're trying to get at. And as it turned out, the problem I reported
was just because I did not have gst-plugins-alsa (or -oss) installed,
which was because gst-plugins-base no longer installs that. I indicated
that I'm using ~x86, so you knew what versions I'm using (the latest,
of course - if not, I would've of course said so).

Michael

-- 
gentoo-user@l.g.o mailing list