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1	<?xml version='1.0'?>	1	<?xml version='1.0' encoding="UTF-8"?>
2	<?xml-stylesheet href="/xsl/guide.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>	2	<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml,v 1.37 2004/06/15 07:21:07 bennyc Exp $ -->
3
4	<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">	3	<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
5		4
6	<guide>	5	<guide link = "/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml">
7	<title>Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide</title>	6	<title>Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide</title>
8	<author title="Author"><mail link="zu@pandora.be">	7	<author title="Author">
9	Vincent Verleye</mail>	8	<mail link="zu@pandora.be">Vincent Verleye</mail>
10	</author>	9	</author>
11		10	<author title="Author">
		11	<mail link="g2boojum@gentoo.org">Grant Goodyear</mail>
		12	</author>
		13	<author title="Author">
		14	<mail link="agenkin@gentoo.org">Arcady Genkin</mail>
		15	</author>
		16	<author title="Author">
		17	<mail link="eradicator@gentoo.org">Jeremy Huddleston</mail>
		18	</author>
12	<author title="Editor"><mail link="zhen@gentoo.org">	19	<author title="Editor"><!-- zhen@gentoo.org -->
13	John P. Davis</mail>	20	John P. Davis
		21	</author>
		22	<author title="Editor">
		23	<mail link="swift@gentoo.org">Sven Vermeulen</mail>
		24	</author>
		25	<author title="Editor">
		26	<mail link="bennyc@gentoo.org">Benny Chuang</mail>
		27	</author>
		28	<author title="Editor">
		29	<mail link="blubber@gentoo.org">Tiemo Kieft</mail>
		30	</author>
		31	<author title="Editor">
		32	<mail link="erwin@gentoo.org">Erwin</mail>
14	</author>	33	</author>
15		34
16	<abstract>	35	<abstract>
17	This guide will show you how to set up the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) on Gentoo Linux.	36	This guide will show you how to set up the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
18	In addition to the Gentoo Linux Desktop Configuration Guide, this guide is supposed to give you more information on this subject. </abstract>	37	(ALSA) on Gentoo Linux. In addition to the Gentoo Linux Desktop Configuration
		38	Guide, this guide is supposed to give you more information on this subject.
		39	</abstract>
19		40
		41	<license/>
		42
20	<version>1.0</version>	43	<version>1.5.0</version>
21	<date>30 Oct 2002</date>	44	<date>May 18, 2004</date>
22		45
23	<chapter>	46	<chapter>
24	<title>Introduction</title>	47	<title>The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture</title>
25	<section>	48	<section>
26	<title>What is ALSA?</title>	49	<title>What is ALSA?</title>
27	<body>
28	<p>
29	The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) is a project to improve the Linux sound subsystem by rewriting
30	large chunks of it.
31	It is anticipated that ALSA will make it into Linux kernel 2.6.x (or 3.x.x -- whichever comes first) as it becomes ready.
32	</p>
33
34	<p>
35	ALSA provides audio and MIDI functionality for Linux.
36	</p>
37
38	<p>
39	Quoted from <uri>http://www.alsa-project.org</uri>, ALSA has the following features:
40	<ul><li> Efficient support for all types of audio interfaces, from consumer soundcards to professional multichannel audio interfaces.</li>
41	<li> Fully modularized sound drivers.</li>
42	<li> SMP and thread-safe design.</li>
43	<li> User space library (alsa-lib) to simplify application programming and provide higher level functionality.</li>
44	<li> Support for the older OSS API, providing binary compatibility for most OSS programs.</li>
45	</ul>
46	There's lots more to ALSA however, like support for Full Duplex playback and recording, multiple soundcard support,
47	hardware mixing of streams, extensive mixer capabilities (to support advanced features of new soundcards), ...
48	</p>
49	</body>	50	<body>
50	</section>	51
51	<section>
52	<title>Why use ALSA?</title>
53	<body>
54	<p>	52	<p>
55	If your soundcard is supported by the Linux kernel sound system or the commercial OSS/4Front sound driver system,	53	ALSA is the <e>Advanced Linux Sound Architecture</e>, a project dedicated to the
56	which can be found in all 2.4.x Linux kernels, you could just aswell build <e>those modules</e> for use with your soundcard.	54	development of a high-quality Linux sound subsystem. It has replaced OSS
57	If you want this, just read through the <uri link="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/index.html">Linux Sound HOWTO</uri>.	55	(<e>Open Sound System</e>) as default sound subsystem in the 2.6 kernel series.
58	</p>	56	</p>
		57
59	<p>	58	<p>
60	However, those OSS/4Front drivers have some limitations -- being commercial is one.	59	ALSA provides efficient support for all types of audio interfaces, is fully
61	ALSA is an attempt to go beyond these limitations and to do so in an open source fashion.	60	modularized, is SMP and thread-safe and provides a high-quality user space
62	ALSA is a fully GPL and LGPL'ed sound driver system, that provides a professional quality system for recording, playback,	61	library called <e>alsa-lib</e> to simplify application programming. It also
63	and MIDI sequencing.	62	provides a backwards compatibility layer with OSS.
64	</p>	63	</p>
65	</body>	64
66	</section>
67	<section>
68	<title>What cards does ALSA support?</title>
69	<body>
70	<p>
71	ALSA tries to support as many (new) cards as possible by providing open-source drivers.
72	However, some vendors may provide binary-only packages.
73	</p>
74	<p>To know if your card is supported, you can find a Soundcard Matrix of supported and not-supported cards here:
75	<uri>http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/</uri>.
76	</p>
77	</body>	65	</body>
78	</section>	66	</section>
79	</chapter>	67	</chapter>
80
81	<chapter>	68	<chapter>
82	<title>Installation</title>	69	<title>Installing ALSA</title>
		70	<section>
		71	<title>USE Flags</title>
		72	<body>
		73
		74	<p>
		75	Gentoo provides an <c>alsa</c> USE flag which you should set in
		76	<path>/etc/make.conf</path> to allow our available packages to compile with
		77	ALSA support. If you have <c>oss</c> in your USE variable as well, ALSA will
		78	compile with OSS backward compatibility.
		79	</p>
		80
		81	</body>
83	<section>	82	</section>
		83	<section>
84	<title>Kernel modules</title>	84	<title>Kernel Modules</title>
85	<body>	85	<body>
86	<p>	86
87	Since we're still using 2.4.x kernel sources, we'll have to compile kernel modules and ALSA modules separately.
88	</p>	87	<p>
		88	First of all, before continuing, make sure your kernel has <e>Sound Card
		89	Support</e> enabled. If you used <c>genkernel</c> to build your kernel, then
		90	this is automatically true. Otherwise reconfigure your kernel.
89	<p>	91	</p>
90	First we'll make sure that our kernel configuration is ready for use with ALSA.	92
91	All you need in your kernel configuration is having Sound Card Support set to be built as a module (M).
92	This will build <c>soundcore.o</c>.
93	</p>	93	<p>
		94	If you use a 2.6 kernel you can skip the rest of this section and continue with
		95	<uri link="#alsa-utils">Installing the ALSA Utils</uri> as 2.6 already has the
		96	necessary ALSA drivers in it. Of course, don't forget to enable support for the
		97	sound card you have when configuring your kernel.
94	<p>	98	</p>
95	<note>	99
96	Possibly, this will also work when you built Sound Card Support in the kernel (Y) instead of building it as a module (M).
97	However, the official ALSA documentation suggests building it as a module, since ALSA will try loading it.
98	</note>
99	</p>	100	<p>
100	<p>If you already have a working kernel configuration, make sure you remove all sound drivers (except for Sound Card Support).	101	Users of 2.4 kernel sources will have to install the necessary ALSA drivers for
101	If you wish to do this without having to reboot, you could do like this:	102	their soundcard. First find out what soundcard you have. An easy trick is to
		103	search for "audio" in <path>/proc/pci</path>:
102	</p>	104	</p>
		105
		106	<pre caption="Finding out the soundcard type">
		107	# <i>grep -i audio /proc/pci</i>
		108	Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio
		109	Controller (rev 64).
103	<pre>	110	</pre>
104	# <c>cd /usr/src/linux</c>	111
105	# <c>cp .config ~</c>
106	# <c>make mrproper</c>
107	# <c>cp ~/.config .</c>
108	# <c>make menuconfig</c>
109	</pre>
110	<p>
111	Now select <e>Sound Card Support</e> as Module (M) and deselect all other sound drivers.
112	Exit and say Y to save your kernel configuration.
113	After that, build the modules:
114	</p>	112	<p>
		113	Now go to the <uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc">ALSA Soundcard
		114	Matrix</uri> and search for your soundcard. In the above example you should go
		115	to the "VIA" manufacturer. You will receive a table with the known chipsets of
		116	that vendor. The chipset in the above example is "via82c686"; the "Details" link
		117	then informs me that the driver is called <path>via82xx</path>.
		118	</p>
		119
		120	<p>
		121	Based on this information we can now install the <c>alsa-driver</c> for our
		122	soundcard. First edit <path>/etc/make.conf</path> and <e>add</e> a new option
		123	called ALSA_CARDS to it. Inside this variable you declare the soundcard driver
		124	you want to use:
		125	</p>
		126
		127	<pre caption="Editing /etc/make.conf for ALSA_CARDS">
		128	ALSA_CARDS="via82xx"
115	<pre>	129	</pre>
116	# <c>make dep clean</c>	130
117	# <c>make modules modules_install</c>
118	</pre>
119	<p>
120	Before installing your new modules, this last line will delete all your previous modules,
121	even the ones from a previous ALSA installation.
122	</p>	131	<p>
		132	Now install <c>alsa-driver</c>:
123	<p>	133	</p>
		134
		135	<pre caption="Installing ALSA Drivers">
		136	# <i>emerge alsa-driver</i>
		137	</pre>
		138
124	<impo>	139	<impo>
125	This means, whenever you recompile your kernel later on, you MUST recompile <c>alsa-driver</c>.	140	Whenever you (re)compile your kernel sources, chances are that the ALSA drivers
		141	will be overwritten. It is therefore adviseable to rerun <c>emerge
		142	alsa-driver</c> every time you (re)compile your kernel <e>after</e> having
		143	rebooted into the new kernel.
126	</impo>	144	</impo>
127	</p>
128	<p>
129	<note>However, there's no need to reinstall <c>nvidia-kernel</c>, the Nvidia drivers are in a separate directory
130	in <path>/lib/modules/*/video</path> and won't get deleted by a <c>make modules modules_install</c>
131	</note>
132	</p>
133	</body>
134	</section>
135		145
		146	</body>
136	<section>	147	</section>
137	<title>ALSA modules</title>	148	<section id="alsa-utils">
138	<body>	149	<title>Installing the ALSA Utils</title>
139
140	<p>
141	Now it's time to install the ALSA drivers for your soundcard(s). If your soundcard is PCI, you can find out the name
142	and type of your soundcard by looking at the output of /proc/pci
143	<pre>#<c>cat /proc/pci \| grep audio</c></pre>
144	</p>
145
146	<p>
147	<warn>
148	If you had a previous sound setup and there are still non-ALSA sound modules loaded, unload them <e>now</e>.
149	Check with <c>lsmod</c> and use <c>rmmod</c> to unload all sound-related modules on your system.
150	</warn>
151	</p>
152
153	<p>
154	We could simply do an <c>emerge alsa-driver</c> now, this would compile and install <e>all</e> ALSA sound drivers.
155	</p>
156	<p>
157	However, to save some time, lookup the <e>Module Name</e> of your soundcard(s) on the
158	<uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc">ALSA Soundcard Matrix</uri> under the <e>Install</e> section.
159	Mine is <c>EMU10K1</c>, since I have an SBlive! soundcard.
160	We'll set ALSA_CARDS environment to this value before emerging, so emerge will only compile the drivers we need.
161	</p>
162
163	<p>
164	<pre>
165	# <c>env ALSA_CARDS='emu10k1' emerge alsa-driver</c>
166	</pre>
167	</p>
168	<p>
169	<note>
170	When you want to install ALSA drivers for more than one soundcard, you could set ALSA_CARDS to a space-separated list
171	of drivers; like this: <c>env ALSA_CARDS='emu10k1 intel8x0 ens1370' emerge alsa-driver</c>
172	</note>
173
174	<note>If you want to have OSS compatibility, make sure to emerge <i>alsa-oss</i>, it is the ALSA/OSS compatibility
175	wrapper. </note>
176
177	</p>
178	<p>
179	After this, the ALSA modules should be installed on your system.
180	</p>
181	</body>	150	<body>
182	</section>	151
		152	<p>
		153	If you want backwards compatibility with OSS, you need to install
		154	<c>alsa-oss</c>:
		155	</p>
		156
		157	<pre caption="Installing the ALSA OSS compatibility layer">
		158	# <i>emerge alsa-oss</i>
		159	</pre>
		160
		161	<p>
		162	Now install the ALSA Utils on your system (this is mandatory):
		163	</p>
		164
		165	<pre caption="Installing ALSA Utils">
		166	# <i>emerge alsa-utils</i>
		167	</pre>
		168
		169	<p>
		170	Now that the utils are installed, it is time to configure ALSA...
		171	</p>
		172
		173	</body>
183	<section>	174	</section>
		175	</chapter>
		176	<chapter>
184	<title>Configuration of ALSA</title>	177	<title>Configuring ALSA</title>
		178	<section>
		179	<title>Automatically Loading the Kernel Modules</title>
185	<body>	180	<body>
186	<p>	181
187	Let's start configuring now to get ALSA working properly.
188	We'll need to edit some files, to let our system know about the freshly installed ALSA modules.
189	</p>	182	<p>
		183	If you use a modular kernel (such as when using <c>genkernel</c>) you have to
		184	edit <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path> so that it activates the necesary modules
		185	at boot time. For the soundcard in our example:
190	<p>	186	</p>
191	First file to edit is <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path>.	187
192	</p>
193	<warn>
194	There is no need to edit <path>/etc/modules.conf</path>. Instead, always edit files in <path>/etc/modules.d</path>.
195	</warn>
196	<p>
197	Check the ALSA portion <e>at the top of the file</e>.
198	By adding this line you can specify the max number of soundcards you have (generally, just one).
199	</p>
200	<p>
201	<pre caption="At the top of /etc/modules.d/alsa">	188	<pre caption="/etc/modules.d/alsa">
202	# Alsa 0.9.X kernel modules' configuration file.
203	# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml,v 1.1 2002/11/09 18:47:44 drobbins Exp $
204
205	# ALSA portion
206	alias char-major-116 snd
207	<c>options snd snd_major=116 snd_cards_limit=1</c>
208	# OSS/Free portion
209	alias char-major-14 soundcore
210
211	##
212	## IMPORTANT:
213	</pre>
214	</p>
215	<p>
216	Now we'll specify the sounddriver(s) ALSA should use. In the same file, edit like this:
217	<pre caption="A bit lower in /etc/modules.d/alsa">
218	## and then run `update-modules' command.
219	## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.
220	##
221	## ALSA portion
222	<c>alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1</c>
223	<c>## If you have more than one, add:
224	## alias snd-card-1 snd-intel8x0	189	alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx
225	## alias snd-card-2 snd-ens1370</c>	190	<comment># The following is only needed when you want OSS compatibility</comment>
226	## OSS/Free portion
227	## alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0	191	alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
228	## alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
229	##
230	</pre>
231	</p>
232	<p>
233	<note>
234	If you have more than one soundcard, adjust the <c>snd_cards_limit</c> value and add more snd-card aliases to the file.
235	I don't have experience with this, but you can find examples for configurations with two or more soundcards in
236	<uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-howto/c1660.htm">Chapter 6</uri>
237	of the <uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-howto/alsa-howto.html">ALSA Howto</uri>.
238	</note>
239	</p>
240	<p>
241	Last thing to do in this file, at the very bottom, check if these lines are there and uncommented:
242	<pre caption="at the very bottom of /etc/modules.d/alsa">
243	alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss	192	alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
244	alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss	193	alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
245	alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss	194	alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
246	</pre>	195	</pre>
		196
247	</p>	197	<p>
		198	Now run <c>modules-update</c> to save the changes you made to the
		199	<path>alsa</path> file into <path>/etc/modules.conf</path>:
248	<p>	200	</p>
249	Now double-check the file <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path> and when you're sure everyting is ok, run <c>update-modules</c>.	201
		202	<pre caption="Running modules-update">
		203	# <i>modules-update</i>
250	<pre>	204	</pre>
251	# <c>update-modules</c>	205
252	</pre>	206	</body>
		207	</section>
		208	<section>
		209	<title>Verifying the Device Files</title>
		210	<body>
		211
253	</p>	212	<p>
254	<note>	213	If you use DevFS (which is the default for Gentoo installations) make sure that
255	Running <c>update-modules</c> here will insert the data from <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path> into <path>/etc/modules.conf</path>	214	<path>/etc/devfsd.conf</path> has the ALSA devices and permissions correctly
256	</note>	215	registered:
257	<p>	216	</p>
258	You should also verify that /etc/devfsd.conf has the alsa devices and permissions correctly registered.	217
259	</p>	218	<pre caption="/etc/devfsd.conf">
260	<pre>
261	# nano -w /etc/devfsd.conf
262	</pre>
263	<pre>
264	# ALSA/OSS stuff	219	# ALSA/OSS stuff
265	# Comment/change these if you want to change the permissions on	220	# Comment/change these if you want to change the permissions on
266	# the audio devices	221	# the audio devices
267	LOOKUP snd MODLOAD ACTION snd	222	LOOKUP snd MODLOAD ACTION snd
268	LOOKUP dsp MODLOAD	223	LOOKUP dsp MODLOAD
269	LOOKUP mixer MODLOAD	224	LOOKUP mixer MODLOAD
270	LOOKUP midi MODLOAD	225	LOOKUP midi MODLOAD
271	REGISTER sound/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660	226	REGISTER sound/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660
272	REGISTER snd/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660	227	REGISTER snd/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660
273	</pre>	228	</pre>
274	<note>	229
275	Notice that devfsd.conf sets /dev/sound permissions to be root.audio. Thus, for non-root users to use audio they will have to be part of the audio group.	230	</body>
276	</note>	231	</section>
		232	<section>
		233	<title>Having ALSA Activated at Boot</title>
		234	<body>
		235
		236	<p>
		237	To activate ALSA support at boot, add the <c>alsasound</c> init script to the
		238	boot runlevel:
		239	</p>
		240
		241	<pre caption="Adding alsasound to the boot runlevel">
		242	# <i>rc-update add alsasound boot</i>
		243	# <i>/etc/init.d/alsasound start</i>
		244	</pre>
		245
		246	</body>
		247	</section>
		248	<section>
		249	<title>Unmute the Channels</title>
		250	<body>
		251
		252	<p>
		253	By default, all sound channels are muted. To fix this, run <c>amixer</c>:
		254	</p>
		255
		256	<pre caption="Running amixer">
		257	# <i>amixer</i>
		258	</pre>
		259
		260	<p>
		261	If <c>amixer</c> produces lots of output then you're ready to unmute the
		262	channels. If you receive an error, doublecheck that your soundcard module is
		263	started.
		264	</p>
		265
		266	<p>
		267	Now unmute the <e>Master</e> and <e>PCM</e> channels. If this isn't sufficient,
		268	also unmute the <e>Center</e> and <e>Surround</e> channels.
		269	</p>
		270
		271	<pre caption="Unmuting the sound channels">
		272	# <i>amixer set Master 100 unmute</i>
		273	# <i>amixer set PCM 100 unmute</i>
		274	<comment>(Only if the above isn't sufficient:)</comment>
		275	# <i>amixer set Center 100 unmute</i>
		276	# <i>amixer set Surround 100 unmute</i>
		277	</pre>
		278
		279	<p>
		280	To check if your sound works, play a wave file (using <c>aplay</c>), mp3 (using
		281	<c>mpg123</c> or even <c>mplayer</c>) or any other sound file for that matter.
		282	</p>
		283
		284	<p>
		285	To fine-tune the sound channel settings you can use the <c>alsamixer</c>
		286	application.
		287	</p>
		288
277	</body>	289	</body>
278	</section>	290	</section>
279	</chapter>	291	</chapter>
280	<chapter>	292	<chapter>
281	<title>Starting ALSA</title>	293	<title>Activating MIDI Support</title>
282	<section>
283	<title>Adding alsasound to a runlevel</title>
284	<body>
285	<p>
286	First thing to do now, is to make ALSA startup at boottime. Like this:
287	<pre>
288	# <c>rc-update add alsasound boot</c>
289	</pre>
290	</p>
291	<p>
292	<warn>Note that the alsasound script should be added to the "boot" runlevel, not the "default" runlevel.</warn>
293	</p>
294	</body>
295	</section>	294	<section>
		295	<title>Installing the Necessary Packages</title>
		296	<body>
		297
		298	<p>
		299	Some soundcards come with onboard MIDI synthesizers. To use them, you must first
		300	install the <c>awesfx</c> package:
		301	</p>
		302
		303	<pre caption="Installing the awesfx package">
		304	# <i>emerge awesfx</i>
		305	</pre>
		306
		307	<p>
		308	If you have a collection of sound fonts somewhere, place them in
		309	<path>/usr/share/sfbank</path>. For instance, the SBLive has a sound font file
		310	called <path>8MBGMSFX.SF2</path> or <path>CT4GMSFX.SF2</path>.
		311	</p>
		312
		313	<p>
		314	After copying over the sound font, select them using <c>sfxload</c>:
		315	</p>
		316
		317	<pre caption="Loading the sound font">
		318	# <i>sfxload /usr/share/sfbank/8MBGMSFX.SF2</i>
		319	</pre>
		320
		321	<p>
		322	You must have this command run every time you boot, so it is adviseable to add
		323	it to <path>/etc/conf.d/local.start</path> as well.
		324	</p>
		325
		326	<p>
		327	If you can't find soundfonts on your driver CD you can download some online from
		328	<uri>http://www.parabola.demon.co.uk/alsa/awe64.html</uri>.
		329	</p>
		330
		331	</body>
296	<section>	332	</section>
297	<title>Running and unmuting</title>	333	<section>
		334	<title>Timidity++ Virtual Synthesizer</title>
		335	<body>
		336
		337	<p>
		338	If your sound card does not come with a hardware synthesizer (or you don't want
		339	to use it), you can use <c>timidity++</c> to provide you with a virtual
		340	synthesizer. Start by emerging this package:
		341	</p>
		342
		343	<pre caption="Installing Timidity++">
		344	# <i>emerge timidity++</i>
		345	</pre>
		346
		347	<p>
		348	A sample configuration file will be installed for you in
		349	<path>/usr/share/timidity/config/timidity.cfg</path>. If you don't have a
		350	timidity++ configuration setup yet, you can just use this one.
		351	</p>
		352
		353	<pre caption="Using the default Timidity++ configuration file">
		354	# <i>cp /usr/share/timidity/config/timidity.cfg /usr/share/timidity</i>
		355	</pre>
		356
		357	<p>
		358	For timidity to play sounds, it needs a soundfont. If you do not have any,
		359	install <c>timidity-eawpatches</c> which will give you some soundfonts.
		360	</p>
		361
		362	<pre caption="Installing timidity-eawpatches">
		363	# <i>emerge timidity-eawpatches</i>
		364	</pre>
		365
		366	<p>
		367	Don't forget to add <c>timidity</c> to the default runlevel.
		368	</p>
		369
		370	<pre caption="Adding timidity to the default runlevel">
		371	# <i>rc-update add timidity default</i>
		372	# <i>/etc/init.d/timidity start</i>
		373	</pre>
		374
298	<body>	375	</body>
299	<p>	376	</section>
300	Since we're Linux users, we don't want to reboot. So we'll start the alsasound script manually.	377	<section>
		378	<title>Testing MIDI Support</title>
		379	<body>
		380
301	</p>	381	<p>
		382	You can use <c>pmidi</c> to test your MIDI configuration:
		383	</p>
		384
		385	<pre caption="Installing pmidi">
		386	# <i>emerge pmidi</i>
302	<pre>	387	</pre>
303	# <c>/etc/init.d/alsasound start</c>	388
304	</pre>
305	<p>
306	ALSA is running now. If everything is ok, you should be able to see the ALSA modules loaded when running <c>lsmod</c>.
307	However, sound won't work yet, because the channels are still muted. We need <c>alsa-utils</c> for this.
308	</p>	389	<p>
		390	To see what MIDI output ports are available on your system, use the <c>-l</c>
		391	option:
		392	</p>
		393
		394	<pre caption="Viewing the MIDI output ports">
		395	# <i>pmidi -l</i>
309	<pre>	396	</pre>
310	# <c>emerge alsa-utils</c>	397
311	# <c>amixer</c>
312	</pre>
313	<p>
314	<warn>
315	You shouldn't get this, but <e>if</e> you get an error about "amixer: Mixer attach default error: No such file or directory", you should manually insmod
316	<c>snd-mixer-oss</c> and <c>snd-pcm-oss</c> once. After that run amixer again.
317	</warn>
318	</p>	398	<p>
319	<pre caption="only if you get an error when running amixer">	399	If all looks fine, try playing a MIDI file to make sure everything works. With
320	# <c>insmod snd-mixer-oss</c>	400	the <c>-p</c> option you define what MIDI port you want to use.
321	# <c>insmod snd-pcm-oss</c>
322	# <c>amixer</c>
323	</pre>
324	<p>	401	</p>
325	If you got this far, now unmute both Master and PCM channels.	402
326	</p>	403	<pre caption="Playing a MIDI file">
327	<p>	404	# <i>pmidi -p 65:0 "Final Fantasy 7 - Aerith' Theme.mid"</i>
328	<pre>	405	</pre>
329	# <c>amixer set Master 100 unmute</c>	406
330	# <c>amixer set PCM 100 unmute</c>
331	# <c>aplay /usr/kde/3/share/sounds/pop.wav</c> <codenote>(pop.wav is part of KDE)</codenote>
332	</pre>
333	</p>
334	We check to see if sound is working by using the aplay (alsa play) command. If you hear a pop, then sound is indeed working.
335	Then, adjust the volume settings to your liking; the ncurses-based <c>alsamixer</c> is a great way to get them "just so".
336	<p>
337	You may want to emerge <c>alsa-xmms</c> as that will provide ALSA support for XMMS.
338	</p>
339	When you reboot your system, the <e>alsasound</e> init script will properly save and restore your volume settings.
340	</body>	407	</body>
341	</section>	408	</section>
342	</chapter>	409	</chapter>
343	<chapter>	410	<chapter>
344	<title>Final Notes</title>	411	<title>Final Remarks</title>
345	<section>
346	<title>After kernel-upgrades..</title>
347	<body>
348	<p>When you ever rebuild your kernel, or upgrade to another kernel, you'll have to rebuild the ALSA modules.</p>
349	<p>Although you might have installed <c>alsa-driver</c>, <c>alsa-libs</c> and <c>alsa-utils</c>, only the first will
350	have to be installed again, since it will put the alsa modules in
351	<path>/lib/modules/*/kernel/sound/pci/</path>.</p>
352	<pre caption="needed after each kernel compile">
353	emerge alsa-driver
354	</pre>
355	</body>
356	</section>	412	<section>
		413	<title>Tools and Firmware</title>
		414	<body>
		415
		416	<p>
		417	Some specific sound cards can benefit from certain tools provided by the
		418	<c>alsa-tools</c> and <c>alsa-firmware</c> packages. If you need
		419	<c>alsa-tools</c>, be sure to define the ALSA_TOOLS variable in
		420	<path>/etc/make.conf</path> with the tools you require. For instance:
		421	</p>
		422
		423	<pre caption="Selecting ALSA Tools in /etc/make.conf">
		424	ALSA_TOOLS="as10k1 ac3dec"
		425	</pre>
		426
		427	<p>
		428	Then install the <c>alsa-tools</c> (and/or <c>alsa-firmware</c>) package(s):
		429	</p>
		430
		431	<pre caption="Installing ALSA Tools">
		432	# <i>emerge alsa-tools</i>
		433	</pre>
		434
		435	</body>
357	<section>	436	</section>
358	<title>/etc/modules.autoload</title>
359	<body>
360	<p>You won't have to edit this file for use with ALSA. After our <c>rc-update add alsasound boot</c>, our system will
361	load the correct modules at startup.</p>
362	<p>It's not necessary to add <c>snd-pcm-oss</c> or <c>snd-mixer-oss</c> in this file.
363	Check the <uri link="http://www.djcj.org/LAU/guide/alsbook/faq1.html">this FAQ</uri> for more info.</p>
364	</body>
365	</section>	437	<section>
		438	<title>Activating Joystick Support</title>
		439	<body>
		440
		441	<p>
		442	If your soundcard has a joystick plug, you might be interested in activating
		443	joystick support for your soundcard. If so, start by verifying if your soundcard
		444	driver has a joystick parameter. You can verify this by running <c>modinfo</c>
		445	against your kernel module. For instance, for the <c>snd-via82xx</c>:
		446	</p>
		447
		448	<pre caption="Running modinfo">
		449	# <i>modinfo snd-via82xx</i>
		450	filename: /lib/modules/2.4.22-ck2/snd-via82xx.o
		451	description: "VIA VT82xx audio"
		452	author: "Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>"
		453	license: "GPL"
		454	parm: index int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Index value for
		455	VIA 82xx bridge."
		456	parm: id string array (min = 1, max = 8), description "ID string for VIA
		457	82xx bridge."
		458	parm: enable int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Enable audio part
		459	of VIA 82xx bridge."
		460	parm: mpu_port long array (min = 1, max = 8), description "MPU-401 port.
		461	(VT82C686x only)"
		462	<i>parm: joystick int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Enable
		463	joystick. (VT82C686x only)"</i>
		464	parm: ac97_clock int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "AC'97 codec
		465	clock (default 48000Hz)."
		466	parm: dxs_support int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Support for
		467	DXS channels (0 = auto, 1 = enable, 2 = disable, 3 = 48k only, 4 =
		468	no VRA)
		469	</pre>
		470
		471	<p>
		472	If it has the <c>joystick</c> parameter, append <c>joystick=1</c> to your
		473	<c>options</c> line in <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path>. For instance:
		474	</p>
		475
		476	<pre caption="Adding the joystick parameter">
		477	alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx
		478	options snd-via82xx joystick=1
		479	</pre>
		480
		481	</body>
366	<section>	482	</section>
367	<title>More links..</title>	483	<section>
		484	<title>Resources</title>
368	<body>	485	<body>
369	<p>	486
370	You could check these for additional info:
371	</p>
372	<p>
373	<ul>	487	<ul>
374	<li><uri link="http://www.gentoo.org/doc/desktop.html">The Gentoo Linux Desktop Configuration Guide</uri></li>
375	<li><uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org">ALSA Project Homepage</uri></li>	488	<li><uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org">The ALSA Project</uri></li>
376	<li><uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/documentation.php3">ALSA Users Documentation</uri></li>
377	<li><uri link="http://www.djcj.org">ALSA Howto's and FAQ's</uri></li>	489	<li><uri link="http://www.djcj.org">ALSA Howto's and FAQs</uri></li>
378	<li><uri link="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/index.html">Linux Sound HOWTO</uri></li>
379	<li><uri link="http://linux-sound.org/">Sound and MIDI Software For Linux</uri></li>	490	<li><uri link="http://linux-sound.org">Linux Sound/MIDI Software</uri></li>
380	</ul>	491	</ul>
381	</p>	492
382	</body>	493	</body>
383	</section>	494	</section>
384	</chapter>	495	</chapter>
385	</guide>	496	</guide>

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