/[gentoo]/xml/htdocs/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml

Diff of /xml/htdocs/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml

Parent Directory | Revision Log | View Patch Patch

Revision 1.29		Revision 1.66
1	<?xml version='1.0' encoding="UTF-8"?>	1	<?xml version='1.0' encoding="UTF-8"?>
2	<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml,v 1.29 2004/03/11 10:00:47 neysx Exp $ -->	2	<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml,v 1.66 2006/05/01 05:52:31 fox2mike Exp $ -->
		3
3	<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">	4	<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
4		5
5	<guide link = "/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml">	6	<guide link="/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml">
6	<title>Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide</title>	7	<title>Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide</title>
		8
7	<author title="Author">	9	<author title="Author">
8	<mail link="zu@pandora.be">Vincent Verleye</mail>	10	<mail link="fox2mike@gentoo.org">Shyam Mani</mail>
9	</author>	11	</author>
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>
19	<author title="Editor"><!-- zhen@gentoo.org -->
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>
33	</author>
34		12
35	<abstract>	13	<abstract>
36	This guide will show you how to set up the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture	14	This document helps a user setup ALSA on Gentoo Linux.
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>	15	</abstract>
40		16
		17	<!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license -->
		18	<!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 -->
41	<license/>	19	<license/>
42		20
43	<version>1.4.1</version>	21	<version>2.12</version>
44	<date>March 10, 2004</date>	22	<date>2006-05-01</date>
45		23
46	<chapter>	24	<chapter>
47	<title>Introduction</title>	25	<title>Introduction</title>
48	<section>	26	<section>
49	<title>What is ALSA?</title>	27	<title>What is ALSA?</title>
50	<body>	28	<body>
51		29
52	<p>	30	<p>
53	The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) is a project to improve the Linux	31	ALSA, which stands for <e>Advanced Linux Sound Architecture</e>, provides
54	sound subsystem by rewriting large chunks of it. It has replaced the Open	32	audio and MIDI (<e>Musical Instrument Digital Interface</e>) functionality to
55	Sound System (OSS) as the default sound subsystem in the 2.6 kernel, but it	33	the Linux operating system. ALSA is the default sound subsystem in the 2.6
56	can be used with either 2.4 or 2.6 kernels.	34	kernel thereby replacing OSS (<e>Open Sound System</e>), which was used in the
57	</p>	35	2.4 kernels.
58
59	<p>	36	</p>
60	ALSA provides audio and MIDI functionality for Linux.	37
61	</p>	38	<p>
62		39	ALSA's main features include efficient support for all types of audio
		40	interfaces ranging from consumer sound cards to professional sound
		41	equipment, fully modularized drivers, SMP and thread safety, backward
		42	compatibility with OSS and a user-space library <c>alsa-lib</c> to make
		43	application development a breeze.
63	<p>	44	</p>
64	Quoted from <uri>http://www.alsa-project.org</uri>, ALSA has the following	45
65	features:	46	</body>
		47	</section>
		48	<section>
		49	<title>ALSA on Gentoo</title>
		50	<body>
		51
		52	<p>
		53	One of Gentoo's main strengths lies in giving the user maximum control over
		54	how a system is installed/configured. ALSA on Gentoo follows the same
		55	principle. There are two ways you can get ALSA support up and running on your
		56	system. We shall look at them in detail in the next chapter.
		57	</p>
		58
		59	</body>
		60	</section>
		61	</chapter>
		62
		63	<chapter>
		64	<title>Installing ALSA</title>
		65	<section>
		66	<title>Options</title>
		67	<body>
		68
		69	<warn>
		70	The methods shown below are mutually exclusive. You cannot have ALSA compiled
		71	in your kernel and use <c>media-sound/alsa-driver</c>. It <e>will</e> fail.
		72	</warn>
		73
		74	<p>
		75	The two options are :
		76	</p>
		77
		78	<ol>
		79	<li>
		80	Use ALSA provided by your kernel. This is the preferred/recommended
		81	method.
		82	</li>
		83	<li>
		84	Use Gentoo's <c>media-sound/alsa-driver</c> package.
		85	</li>
		86	</ol>
		87
		88	<p>
		89	We shall take a peek into both before finally deciding on one.
		90	</p>
		91
		92	<p>
		93	If you were to use ALSA provided by the kernel, the following are the pros and
		94	cons :
		95	</p>
		96
		97	<table>
		98	<tr>
		99	<th>Kernel ALSA</th>
		100	<th>Pros and Cons</th>
		101	</tr>
		102	<tr>
		103	<th>+</th>
		104	<ti>Pretty stable as drivers are integrated into kernel.</ti>
		105	</tr>
		106	<tr>
		107	<th>+</th>
		108	<ti>One shot solution, no repeating emerges.</ti>
		109	</tr>
		110	<tr>
		111	<th>-</th>
		112	<ti>Might be a slightly older version than <c>alsa-driver</c>.</ti>
		113	</tr>
		114	</table>
		115
		116	<p>
		117	And, if you were to use alsa-driver,
		118	</p>
		119
		120	<table>
		121	<tr>
		122	<th>alsa-driver</th>
		123	<th>Pros and Cons</th>
		124	</tr>
		125	<tr>
		126	<th>+</th>
		127	<ti>Latest drivers from the ALSA Project.</ti>
		128	</tr>
		129	<tr>
		130	<th>-</th>
		131	<ti>Every kernel recompile requires a re-emerge of <c>alsa-driver</c>.</ti>
		132	</tr>
		133	<tr>
		134	<th>-</th>
		135	<ti>Needs certain kernel config options disabled to work correctly.</ti>
		136	</tr>
		137	</table>
		138
		139	</body>
		140	</section>
		141	<section>
		142	<title>So...</title>
		143	<body>
		144
		145	<p>
		146	The main difference between using <c>alsa-driver</c> and ALSA that comes with
		147	the kernel is that <c>alsa-driver</c> is generally more up to date than the
		148	version in the kernel. Since this does not make any huge difference as
		149	such, you are encouraged to use the ALSA provided by the kernel for ease of use.
		150	Before reporting any sound related issues to <uri
		151	link="https://bugs.gentoo.org">Gentoo Bugzilla</uri>, please try to reproduce
		152	them using <c>alsa-driver</c> and file the bug report no matter what the
		153	result.
		154	</p>
		155
		156	</body>
		157	</section>
		158	<section id="lspci">
		159	<title>Before you proceed</title>
		160	<body>
		161
		162	<p>
		163	Whichever method of install you choose, you need to know what drivers your
		164	sound card uses. In most cases, sound cards (onboard and otherwise) are PCI
		165	based and <c>lspci</c> will help you in digging out the required information.
		166	Please <c>emerge sys-apps/pciutils</c> to get <c>lspci</c>, if you don't have it
		167	installed already. In case you have a USB sound card, <c>lsusb</c> from
		168	<c>sys-apps/usbutils</c> <e>might</e> be of help. For ISA cards, try using
		169	<c>sys-apps/isapnptools</c>. Also, the following pages <e>may</e> help users
		170	with ISA based sound cards.
66	</p>	171	</p>
67		172
68	<ul>	173	<ul>
69	<li>	174	<li>
70	Efficient support for all types of audio interfaces, from consumer	175	<uri link="http://www.roestock.demon.co.uk/isapnptools/">The ISAPNPTOOLS
71	soundcards to professional multichannel audio interfaces	176	Page</uri>
72	</li>
73	<li>Fully modularized sound drivers</li>
74	<li>SMP and thread-safe design</li>
75	<li>
76	User space library (alsa-lib) to simplify application programming and
77	provide higher level functionality
78	</li>
79	<li>
80	Support for the older OSS API, providing binary compatibility for most OSS
81	programs
82	</li>	177	</li>
		178	<li>
		179	<uri link="http://www2.linuxjournal.com/article/3269">LinuxJournal PnP
		180	Article</uri>
		181	</li>
		182	<li>
		183	<uri link="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/x320.html">TLDP Sound
		184	HowTo</uri>
		185	</li>
83	</ul>	186	</ul>
84		187
85	<p>	188	<note>
86	There's lots more to ALSA however, like support for Full Duplex playback and	189	For ease of use/explanation, we assume the user has a PCI based sound card for
87	recording, multiple soundcard support, hardware mixing of streams, extensive	190	the remainder of this guide.
88	mixer capabilities (to support advanced features of new soundcards), ...	191	</note>
		192
89	</p>	193	<p>
		194	We now proceed to find out details about the sound card.
		195	</p>
90		196
		197	<pre caption="Soundcard Details">
		198	# <i>lspci -v \| grep -i audio</i>
		199	0000:00:0a.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 06)
		200	</pre>
		201
		202	<p>
		203	We now know that the sound card on the machine is a Sound Blaster Live! and
		204	the card manufacturer is Creative Labs. Head over to the
		205	<uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/"> ALSA Soundcard Matrix</uri>
		206	page and select Creative Labs from the drop down menu. You will be taken to
		207	the Creative Labs matrix page where you can see that the SB Live! uses the
		208	<c>emu10k1</c> module. That is the information we need for now. If you are
		209	interested in detailed information, you can click on the link next to the
		210	"Details" and that will take you to the <c>emu10k1</c> specific page.
		211	</p>
		212
91	</body>	213	</body>
92	</section>
93	<section>	214	</section>
94	<title>Why use ALSA?</title>	215	<section id="kernel">
95	<body>	216	<title>Using ALSA provided by your Kernel</title>
96
97	<p>
98	Your sound card may be supported by modules available in the 2.4 kernel (these
99	are also provided in the 2.6 kernel under the 'Open Sound System (DEPRECATED)'
100	option). Additionally, you might be able to use the commercial OSS/4Front sound
101	driver system. If you wish to use either of these systems, then you should read
102	through the <uri link="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/index.html">Linux
103	Sound HOWTO</uri>.
104	</p>
105
106	<p>
107	The OSS/4Front drivers have some limitations, however. Being commercial is
108	one. ALSA is an attempt to go beyond these limitations with an open source
109	development model. ALSA is a fully GPL and LGPL'ed sound driver system that
110	provides a professional quality system for recording, playback, and MIDI
111	sequencing.
112	</p>
113
114	</body>	217	<body>
115	</section>	218
		219	<p>
		220	If you're a person who likes to keep things simple like I do, then this is
		221	the way to go.
		222	</p>
		223
		224	<note>
		225	Since the 2005.0 release, Gentoo Linux uses 2.6 as the default kernel. Unless
		226	you are specifically using the 2.4 profile, <c>gentoo-sources</c> will be a
		227	2.6 kernel on <e>most</e> architectures. Please check that your kernel is a
		228	2.6 series kernel. This method will <e>not</e> work on a 2.4 kernel.
		229	</note>
		230
		231	<p>
		232	Let us now configure the kernel to enable ALSA.
		233	</p>
		234
		235	<impo>
		236	<c>genkernel</c> users should now run <c>genkernel --menuconfig all</c> and
		237	then follow the instructions in <uri link="#doc_chap2_pre3">Kernel Options for
		238	ALSA</uri>.
		239	</impo>
		240
		241	<pre caption="Heading over to the source">
		242	# <i>cd /usr/src/linux</i>
		243	# <i>make menuconfig</i>
		244	</pre>
		245
		246	<note>
		247	The above example assumes that <path>/usr/src/linux</path> symlink points to
		248	the kernel sources you want to use. Please ensure the same before proceeding.
		249	</note>
		250
		251	<p>
		252	Now we will look at some of the options we will have to enable in the 2.6
		253	kernel to ensure proper ALSA support for our sound card.
		254	</p>
		255
		256	<p>
		257	Please note that for the sake of ease, all examples show ALSA built as modules.
		258	It is advisable to follow the same as it then allows the use of <c>alsaconf</c>
		259	which is a boon when you want to configure your card. Please do <e>not</e> skip
		260	the <uri link="#alsa-config">Configuration</uri> section of this document. If
		261	you still like to have options built-in, ensure that you make changes to your
		262	config accordingly.
		263	</p>
		264
		265	<pre caption="Kernel Options for ALSA">
		266	Device Drivers --->
		267	Sound --->
		268
		269	<comment>(This needs to be enabled)</comment>
		270	<M> Sound card support
		271
		272	<comment>(Make sure OSS is disabled)</comment>
		273	Open Sound System --->
		274	< > Open Sound System (DEPRECATED)
		275
		276	<comment>(Move one step back and enter ALSA)</comment>
		277	Advanced Linux Sound Architecture --->
		278	<M> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
		279	<comment>(Select this if you want MIDI sequencing and routing)</comment>
		280	<M> Sequencer support
		281	<comment>(Old style /dev/mixer* and /dev/dsp* support. Recommended.)</comment>
		282	<M> OSS Mixer API
		283	<M> OSS PCM (digital audio) API
		284
		285	<comment>(You now have a choice of devices to enable support for. Generally,
		286	you will have one type of device and not more. If you have more than one
		287	sound card, please enable them all here.)</comment>
		288
		289	<comment>(Mostly for testing and development purposes, not needed for normal
		290	users unless you know what you are doing.)</comment>
		291	Generic devices --->
		292
		293	<comment>(For ISA Sound cards)</comment>
		294	ISA devices --->
		295	<comment>(IF you had the Gravis, you would select this option)</comment>
		296	<M> Gravis UltraSound Extreme
		297
		298	<comment>(Move one level back and into PCI devices. Most sound cards today are
		299	PCI devices)</comment>
		300	PCI devices --->
		301	<comment>(We now select the emu10k1 driver for our card)</comment>
		302	<M> Emu10k1 (SB Live!, Audigy, E-mu APS)
		303	<comment>(Or an Intel card would be)</comment>
		304	<M> Intel/SiS/nVidia/AMD/ALi AC97 Controller
		305	<comment>(Or if you have a VIA Card)</comment>
		306	<M> VIA 82C686A/B, 8233/8235 AC97 Controller
		307
		308	<comment>(Move one level back and select in case you have an USB sound card)</comment>
		309	USB Devices --->
		310	</pre>
		311
		312	<p>
		313	Now that your options are set, you can (re)compile the kernel and ALSA support
		314	for your card should be functional once you reboot into the new kernel. Don't
		315	forget to update your GRUB configuration to use the newly built kernel.
		316	You can now proceed to <uri link="#alsa-utilities">ALSA Utilities</uri> and
		317	see if everything is working as it should.
		318	</p>
		319
		320	</body>
116	<section>	321	</section>
117	<title>What cards does ALSA support?</title>	322	<section id="alsa-driver">
		323	<title>Using the ALSA Driver package</title>
118	<body>	324	<body>
119		325
120	<p>
121	ALSA tries to support as many (new) cards as possible by providing open-source
122	drivers. However, some vendors may provide binary-only packages.
123	</p>	326	<p>
124		327	So you've decided to go the <c>alsa-driver</c> way. Let's get started then.
		328	There are a few minor things to be done to ensure only the drivers for your
		329	sound card are compiled. Although this is not really necessary, it cuts down
		330	on the unnecessary drivers that will be compiled otherwise.
125	<p>	331	</p>
126	To know if your card is supported, you can find a Soundcard Matrix of supported	332
127	and not-supported cards here: <uri>http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/</uri>.
128	</p>	333	<p>
		334	If you don't have an idea of what drivers your sound card might need, please
		335	take a look at the <uri link="#lspci">lspci</uri> section of this guide. Once
		336	you have your driver name (<c>emu10k1</c> in our example), edit
		337	<path>/etc/make.conf</path> and add a variable, <c>ALSA_CARDS</c>.
		338	</p>
		339
		340	<pre caption="Adding ALSA_CARDS to make.conf">
		341	<comment>(For one sound card)</comment>
		342	ALSA_CARDS="emu10k1"
		343	<comment>(For more than one, separate names with spaces)</comment>
		344	ALSA_CARDS="emu10k1 via82xx"
		345	</pre>
		346
		347	<p>
		348	If you have compiled your kernel and want to use <c>alsa-driver</c>, please
		349	ensure the following before proceeding, else <c>alsa-driver</c> is likely to
		350	fail. The next code listing gives you one way of performing the checks.
		351	</p>
		352
		353	<note>
		354	<c>genkernel</c> users can proceed with <uri link="#doc_chap2_pre6">Installing
		355	alsa-driver</uri> as their configuration is in sync with the one shown below by
		356	default.
		357	</note>
		358
		359	<ol>
		360	<li>
		361	<c>CONFIG_SOUND</c> is set. (Basic Sound support enabled)
		362	</li>
		363	<li>
		364	<c>CONFIG_SOUND_PRIME</c> is not set. (In-built OSS support disabled)
		365	</li>
		366	<li>
		367	<c>CONFIG_SND</c> is not set. (In-built ALSA support disabled)
		368	</li>
		369	<li>
		370	<path>/usr/src/linux</path> points to the kernel you want ALSA working on.
		371	</li>
		372	</ol>
		373
		374	<pre caption=".config checks">
		375	<comment>(Assuming the linux symlink points to the correct kernel)</comment>
		376	# <i>cd /usr/src/linux</i>
		377	# <i>grep SOUND .config</i>
		378	<comment>(1. is true)</comment>
		379	CONFIG_SOUND=y
		380	<comment>(2. is true)</comment>
		381	CONFIG_SOUND_PRIME is not set
		382	# <i>grep SND .config</i>
		383	<comment>(and 3. is true)</comment>
		384	CONFIG_SND is not set
		385	</pre>
		386
		387	<p>
		388	Now all you have to do is type the magic words... and no, it's not abracadabra.
		389	</p>
		390
		391	<pre caption="Installing alsa-driver">
		392	# <i>emerge alsa-driver</i>
		393	</pre>
		394
		395	<impo>
		396	Please note that you will have to run <c>emerge alsa-driver</c> after every
		397	kernel (re)compile, as the earlier drivers are deleted.
		398	</impo>
129		399
130	</body>	400	</body>
131	</section>	401	</section>
132	</chapter>	402	</chapter>
133		403
134	<chapter>	404	<chapter>
135	<title>Installation</title>	405	<title>Configuring/Testing ALSA</title>
136	<section>	406	<section id="alsa-utilities">
137	<title>Gentoo USE flags</title>	407	<title>ALSA Utilities</title>
138	<body>
139
140	<p>
141	To compile programs with ALSA-support, be sure to add <e>alsa</e> to
142	your USE-variable. However, several tools don't support alsa yet, and
143	require OSS. ALSA provides OSS-emulation if you define <e>oss</e> in your
144	USE-variable before you start.
145	</p>
146
147	</body>	408	<body>
148	</section>
149	<section>
150	<title>Kernel modules</title>
151	<body>
152		409
153	<p>
154	When using the 2.4 kernels, you'll need to compile the alsa drivers separately
155	from the rest of the kernel. If you are using a 2.6 kernel, you have the
156	option of using the ALSA drivers included in the kernel or those provided
157	by the <c>alsa-driver</c> package.
158	</p>	410	<p>
159		411	<c>alsa-utils</c> forms an integral part of ALSA as it has a truckload of
		412	programs that are highly useful, including the ALSA Initscripts. Hence we
		413	strongly recommend that you install <c>alsa-utils</c>
160	<p>	414	</p>
161	First we'll make sure that our kernel configuration is ready for use with ALSA.	415
162	All you need in your kernel configuration is having Sound Card Support set to	416	<pre caption="Install alsa-utils">
163	be built as a module (M). This will build <path>soundcore.o</path>.	417	# <i>emerge alsa-utils</i>
164	</p>	418	</pre>
165		419
166	<note>	420	<note>
167	Possibly, this will also work if you build 'Sound Card Support' in the kernel	421	If you activated ALSA in your <uri link="#kernel">kernel</uri> <e>and</e> did
168	(Y) instead of building it as a module (M). However, the official ALSA	422	not compile ALSA as modules, please proceed to the
169	documentation suggests building it as a module, since ALSA will try loading it.	423	<uri link="#initscript">ALSA Initscript</uri> section. The rest of you need
		424	to configure ALSA. This is made very easy by the existence of the
		425	<c>alsaconf</c> tool provided by <c>alsa-utils</c>.
170	</note>	426	</note>
171		427
172	<p>	428	</body>
173	If you already have a working kernel configuration, make sure you remove all	429	</section>
174	sound drivers (except for Sound Card Support). If you wish to do this without	430	<section id="alsa-config">
175	having to reboot, you could do like this:	431	<title>Configuration</title>
		432	<body>
		433
		434	<note>
		435	Please shut down any programs that <e>might</e> access the sound card while
		436	running <c>alsaconf</c>.
		437	</note>
		438
176	</p>	439	<p>
177		440	The easiest way to configure your sound card is to run <c>alsaconf</c>. Just
178	<pre caption="Kernel configuration">	441	type <c>alsaconf</c> in a shell as root.
179	# <i>cd /usr/src/linux</i>
180	# <i>cp .config ~/</i>
181	# <i>make mrproper</i>
182	# <i>cp ~/.config .</i>
183	# <i>make menuconfig</i>
184	</pre>
185
186	<p>	442	</p>
187	Now select <e>Sound Card Support</e> as Module (M) and deselect all other sound	443
188	drivers. If you are using 2.6 with the ALSA modules provided by the kernel, select	444	<pre caption="Invoking alsaconf">
189	the drivers for your sound card as well (look in the <uri	445	# <i>alsaconf</i>
190	link="#doc_chap2_sect3">ALSA modules</uri> section below if you need help	446	</pre>
191	choosing the right drivers). Exit and say Y to save your kernel configuration.	447
192	After that, build the modules:
193	</p>	448	<p>
194		449	You will now see a neat menu guided interface that will automatically probe
195	<pre caption="2.4 Kernel compilation">	450	your devices and try to find out your sound card. You will be asked to pick
196	# <i>make dep clean</i>	451	your sound card from a list. Once that's done, it will ask you permission to
197	# <i>make modules modules_install</i>	452	automatically make required changes to <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path>.
198	</pre>	453	It will then adjust your volume settings to optimum levels, run
199		454	<c>modules-update</c> and start the <path>/etc/init.d/alsasound</path> service.
200	<pre caption="2.6 Kernel compilation">	455	Once <c>alsaconf</c> exits, you can proceed with setting up the ALSA
201	# <i>make</i>	456	initscript.
202	# <i>make modules_install</i>
203	</pre>
204
205	<p>	457	</p>
206	If you compiled 2.6 with the ALSA modules provided by the kernel, please skip to	458
207	<uri link="#doc_chap2_sect4">Configuration of ALSA</uri> below.	459	</body>
		460	</section>
		461	<section id="initscript">
		462	<title>ALSA Initscript</title>
		463	<body>
		464
208	</p>	465	<p>
209		466	We're now almost all setup. Whichever method you chose to install ALSA, you'll
		467	need to have something load your modules or initialize ALSA and restore your
		468	volume settings when your system comes up. The ALSA Initscript handles all of
		469	this for you and is called <c>alsasound</c>. Add it to the boot runlevel.
210	<p>	470	</p>
211	Before installing your new modules, this last line will delete all your previous	471
212	modules, even the ones from a previous ALSA installation.	472	<pre caption="Adding ALSA to the boot runlevel">
		473	# <i>rc-update add alsasound boot</i>
		474	* alsasound added to runlevel boot
		475	* rc-update complete.
		476	</pre>
		477
213	</p>	478	<p>
		479	Next, just check the <path>/etc/conf.d/alsasound</path> file and ensure that
		480	SAVE_ON_STOP variable is set to yes. This saves your sound settings when you
		481	shutdown your system.
		482	</p>
		483
		484	</body>
		485	</section>
		486	<section>
		487	<title>Audio Group</title>
		488	<body>
		489
		490	<p>
		491	Before we move on to testing, there's one last <e>important</e> thing that needs
		492	to be setup. Rule of thumb in a *nix OS : Do not run as root unless needed.
		493	This applies here as well ;) How? Well, most of the times you should be logged
		494	in as a user and would like to listen to music or access your soundcard. For
		495	that to happen, you need to be in the "audio" group. At this point, we'll add
		496	users to the audio group, so that they won't have any issues when they want to
		497	access sound devices. We'll use <c>gpasswd</c> here and you need to be logged in
		498	as root for this to work.
		499	</p>
		500
		501	<pre caption="Adding users to the audio group">
		502	<comment>(Substitute <username> with your user)</comment>
		503	# <i>gpasswd -a <username> audio </i>
		504	Adding user <username> to group audio
		505	</pre>
		506
		507	</body>
		508	</section>
		509	<section>
		510	<title>Volume Check!</title>
		511	<body>
		512
		513	<p>
		514	We've completed all the setups and pre-requisites, so let's fire up ALSA. If
		515	you ran <c>alsaconf</c>, you can skip this step, since <c>alsaconf</c> already
		516	does this for you.
		517	</p>
		518
		519	<pre caption="Start the service">
		520	<comment>(ALSA as modules)</comment>
		521	# <i>/etc/init.d/alsasound start</i>
		522	* Loading ALSA modules ...
		523	* Loading: snd-card-0 ... [ ok ]
		524	* Loading: snd-pcm-oss ... [ ok ]
		525	* Loading: snd-seq ... [ ok ]
		526	* Loading: snd-emu10k1-synth ... [ ok ]
		527	* Loading: snd-seq-midi ... [ ok ]
		528	* Restoring Mixer Levels ... [ ok ]
		529	<comment>(ALSA compiled in)</comment>
		530	# <i>/etc/init.d/alsasound start</i>
		531	* Loading ALSA modules ...
		532	* Restoring Mixer Levels ... [ ok ]
		533	</pre>
		534
		535	<p>
		536	Now that the required things have been taken care of, we need to check up on
		537	the volume as in certain cases, it is muted. We use <c>alsamixer</c> for this
		538	purpose.
		539	</p>
		540
		541	<pre caption="Starting alsamixer">
		542	<comment>(Opens up a console program. Only required settings are shown)</comment>
		543	# <i>alsamixer</i>
		544	</pre>
214		545
215	<impo>	546	<impo>
216	This means, whenever you recompile your kernel later on, you MUST recompile	547	If you have issues starting up <c>alsamixer</c> and get errors such as
217	<c>alsa-driver</c>.	548	alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory,
		549	this is usually an issue with udev setting up the devices. Run <c>killall
		550	udevd; udevstart</c> to reload <path>/dev</path> entries and fire up
		551	<c>alsamixer</c>. It should solve the issue.
218	</impo>	552	</impo>
219		553
220	</body>
221	</section>
222	<section>
223	<title>ALSA modules</title>
224	<body>
225
226	<p>
227	Now it's time to install the ALSA drivers for your soundcard(s). If your
228	soundcard is PCI, you can find out the name and type of your soundcard by
229	looking at the output of <path>/proc/pci</path>.
230	</p>	554	<p>
231		555	This is how the ALSA Mixer <e>might</e> look the first time you open it. Pay
232	<pre caption="Search for soundcard information">	556	attention to the Master and PCM channels which both have an MM below them.
233	# <i>grep audio /proc/pci</i>	557	That means they are muted. If you try to play anything with <c>alsamixer</c>
		558	in this state, you will not hear anything on your speakers.
234	</pre>	559	</p>
		560
		561	<figure link="/images/docs/alsa-mixermuted.png" short="AlsaMixer Muted" caption="The Alsa Mixer Main Window, Muted"/>
		562
		563	<p>
		564	Now, we shall unmute the channels, and set volume levels as needed.
		565	</p>
235		566
236	<warn>	567	<warn>
237	If you had a previous sound setup and there are still non-ALSA sound modules	568	Both Master <e>and</e> PCM need to be unmuted and set to audible volume levels
238	loaded, unload them <e>now</e>. Check with <c>lsmod</c> and use <c>rmmod</c>	569	if you want to hear some output on your speakers.
239	to unload all sound-related modules on your system. If <c>rmmod</c> complains
240	about not being able to unload the modules because they are in use, try using
241	<c>/etc/init.c/alsasound stop</c> to remove them.
242	</warn>	570	</warn>
243		571
244	<p>	572	<ul>
245	We could simply do an <c>emerge alsa-driver</c> now, this would compile and	573	<li>
246	install <e>all</e> ALSA sound drivers.	574	To move between channels, use your left and right arrow keys. (<-
247	</p>	575	& ->)
248		576	</li>
249	<p>	577	<li>
250	However, to save some time, lookup the <e>Module Name</e> of your soundcard(s)	578	To toggle mute, move to the specific channel, for example Master and press
251	on the <uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc">ALSA Soundcard	579	the <e>m</e> key on the keyboard.
252	Matrix</uri> by following the <e>Details</e> link in the <e>Driver and Docs</e>	580	</li>
253	column in the row of the chipset of your soundcard. Mine is <c>snd-emu10k1</c>,	581	<li>
254	since I have an SBlive! soundcard, with the <e>EMU10K1</e> chipset. We'll set	582	To increase and decrease the volume levels, use the up and down arrow keys
255	ALSA_CARDS environment to the value of the module name before emerging (but	583	respectively.
256	without the snd prefix), so emerge will only compile the drivers we need.	584	</li>
257	</p>	585	</ul>
258
259	<pre caption="With 2.4 Kernel">
260	# <i>env ALSA_CARDS='emu10k1' emerge alsa-driver</i>
261	</pre>
262
263	<pre caption="With 2.6 Kernel">
264	# <i>env ALSA_CARDS='emu10k1' emerge \>=media-sound/alsa-driver-1.0.2c</i>
265	</pre>
266		586
267	<note>	587	<note>
268	2.6 kernels require alsa-driver to be at least version 1.0.2c.	588	Be careful when setting your Bass and Treble values. 50 is usually a good
		589	number for both. Extremely high values of Bass may cause <e>jarring</e>
		590	on speakers that are not designed to handle them.
269	</note>	591	</note>
270		592
		593	<p>
		594	After you're all done, your ALSA Mixer should look similar to the one below.
		595	Note the 00 instead of the MM and also the volume levels for some optimum
		596	settings.
		597	</p>
		598
		599	<figure link="/images/docs/alsa-mixerunmuted.png" short="AlsaMixer Unmuted" caption="Alsa Mixer ready to roll"/>
		600
		601	</body>
		602	</section>
		603	<section>
		604	<title>Sound Check!</title>
		605	<body>
		606
		607	<p>
		608	Finally. Some music. If everything above is perfect, you should now be able to
		609	listen to some good music. A quick way to test is to use a command line tool
		610	like <c>media-sound/madplay</c>. You could also use something more well known
		611	like <c>mpg123</c> or <c>xmms</c>. If you are an ogg fan, you could use
		612	<c>ogg123</c> provided by <c>media-sound/vorbis-tools</c>. Use any player you
		613	are comfortable with. As always, <c>emerge</c> what you need.
		614	</p>
		615
		616	<pre caption="Getting the software">
		617	<comment>(Install the applications you want)</comment>
		618	# <i>emerge madplay mpg123 xmms</i>
		619	<comment>(To play .ogg files)</comment>
		620	# <i>emerge vorbis-tools</i>
		621	</pre>
		622
		623	<p>
		624	And then play your favorite sound track...
		625	</p>
		626
		627	<pre caption="Playing Music">
		628	# <i>madplay -v /mnt/shyam/Music/Paul\ Oakenfold\ -\ Dread\ Rock.mp3</i>
		629	MPEG Audio Decoder 0.15.2 (beta) - Copyright (C) 2000-2004 Robert Leslie et al.
		630	Title: Dread Rock
		631	Artist: Paul Oakenfold
		632	Album: Matrix Reloaded
		633	Year: 2003
		634	Genre: Soundtrack
		635	Soundtrack
		636	00:04:19 Layer III, 160 kbps, 44100 Hz, joint stereo (MS), no CRC
		637
		638	# <i>ogg123 Paul\ Oakenfold\ -\ Dread\ Rock.ogg</i>
		639	Audio Device: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) output
		640
		641	Playing: Paul Oakenfold - Dread Rock.ogg
		642	Ogg Vorbis stream: 2 channel, 44100 Hz
		643	Genre: Soundtrack
		644	Transcoded: mp3;160
		645	Title: Dread Rock
		646	Artist: Paul Oakenfold
		647	Date: 2003
		648	Album: Matrix Reloaded
		649	Time: 00:11.31 [04:28.75] of 04:40.06 (200.6 kbps) Output Buffer 96.9%
		650	</pre>
		651
		652	</body>
		653	</section>
		654	<section>
		655	<title>ALSA and USE</title>
		656	<body>
		657
		658	<p>
		659	You can now add the <c>alsa</c> use flag to <path>/etc/make.conf</path> to
		660	ensure that your applications that support ALSA get built with it. Some
		661	architectures like x86 and amd64 have the flag enabled by default.
		662	</p>
		663
		664	</body>
		665	</section>
		666	<section>
		667	<title>Issues?</title>
		668	<body>
		669
		670	<p>
		671	If for some reason you're unable to hear sound, the first thing to do would
		672	be to check your <uri link="#doc_chap3_pre6">alsamixer</uri> settings. 80% of
		673	the issues lie with muted channels or low volume. Also check your Window
		674	Manager's sound applet and verify that volumes are set to audible levels.
		675	</p>
		676
		677	<p>
		678	<path>/proc</path> is your friend. And in this case, <path>/proc/asound</path>
		679	is your best friend. We shall just take a short look at how much info is made
		680	available to us there.
		681	</p>
		682
		683	<pre caption="Fun with /proc/asound">
		684	<comment>(First and foremost, if /proc/asound/cards shows your card, ALSA has
		685	picked up your sound card fine.)</comment>
		686	# <i>cat /proc/asound/cards</i>
		687	0 [Live ]: EMU10K1 - Sound Blaster Live!
		688	Sound Blaster Live! (rev.6, serial:0x80271102) at 0xb800, irq 11
		689
		690	<comment>(If you run ALSA off the kernel like I do and wonder how far behind
		691	you are from alsa-driver, this displays current running ALSA version)</comment>
		692	# <i>cat /proc/asound/version</i>
		693	Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.8 (Thu Jan 13 09:39:32 2005 UTC).
		694
		695	<comment>(ALSA OSS emulation details)</comment>
		696	# <i>cat /proc/asound/oss/sndstat</i>
		697	Sound Driver:3.8.1a-980706 (ALSA v1.0.8 emulation code)
		698	Kernel: Linux airwolf.zion 2.6.11ac1 #2 Wed May 4 00:35:08 IST 2005 i686
		699	Config options: 0
		700
		701	Installed drivers:
		702	Type 10: ALSA emulation
		703
		704	Card config:
		705	Sound Blaster Live! (rev.6, serial:0x80271102) at 0xb800, irq 11
		706
		707	Audio devices:
		708	0: EMU10K1 (DUPLEX)
		709
		710	Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG
		711
		712	Midi devices:
		713	0: EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART)
		714
		715	Timers:
		716	7: system timer
		717
		718	Mixers:
		719	0: SigmaTel STAC9721/23
		720	</pre>
		721
		722	<p>
		723	The other most common issue users face is the dreaded "Unknown symbol in module"
		724	error. An example of the same is shown below.
		725	</p>
		726
		727	<pre caption="Unknown Symbol in module error">
		728	# <i>/etc/init.d/alsasound start</i>
		729	* Loading ALSA modules ...
		730	* Loading: snd-card-0 ... [ ok ]
		731	* Loading: snd-pcm-oss ...
		732	WARNING: Error inserting snd_mixer_oss
		733	(/lib/modules/2.6.12-gentoo-r6/kernel/sound/core/oss/snd-mixer-oss.ko): Unknown
		734	symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg) FATAL: Error inserting
		735	snd_pcm_oss
		736	(/lib/modules/2.6.12-gentoo-r6/kernel/sound/core/oss/snd-pcm-oss.ko): Unknown
		737	symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
		738	[ !! ]
		739	* Loading: snd-mixer-oss ...
		740	FATAL: Error inserting snd_mixer_oss
		741	(/lib/modules/2.6.12-gentoo-r6/kernel/sound/core/oss/snd-mixer-oss.ko): Unknown
		742	symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
		743	[ !! ]
		744	* Loading: snd-seq ... [ ok ]
		745	* Loading: snd-emu10k1-synth ... [ ok ]
		746	* Loading: snd-seq-midi ... [ ok ]
		747	* Restoring Mixer Levels ... [ ok ]
		748	</pre>
		749
		750	<p>
		751	And when you take a look at <c>dmesg</c> as suggested, you're quite likely to
		752	see:
		753	</p>
		754
		755	<pre caption="dmesg output">
		756	<comment>(Only relevant portions are shown below)</comment>
		757	# <i>dmesg \| less</i>
		758	ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:06.0[A] -> Link [APC3] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 209
		759	snd_mixer_oss: Unknown symbol snd_unregister_oss_device
		760	snd_mixer_oss: Unknown symbol snd_register_oss_device
		761	snd_mixer_oss: Unknown symbol snd_mixer_oss_notify_callback
		762	snd_mixer_oss: Unknown symbol snd_oss_info_register
		763	snd_pcm_oss: Unknown symbol snd_unregister_oss_device
		764	snd_pcm_oss: Unknown symbol snd_register_oss_device
		765	snd_pcm_oss: Unknown symbol snd_mixer_oss_ioctl_card
		766	snd_pcm_oss: Unknown symbol snd_oss_info_register
		767	snd_mixer_oss: Unknown symbol snd_unregister_oss_device
		768	snd_mixer_oss: Unknown symbol snd_register_oss_device
		769	snd_mixer_oss: Unknown symbol snd_mixer_oss_notify_callback
		770	snd_mixer_oss: Unknown symbol snd_oss_info_register
		771	</pre>
		772
		773	<p>
		774	The above issue is caused when you switch from <c>alsa-driver</c> to in-kernel
		775	ALSA because when you unmerge <c>alsa-driver</c> the module files are config
		776	protected and hence get left behind. So, when you switch to in-kernel
		777	drivers, running <c>modprobe</c> gives you a mix of <c>alsa-driver</c> and
		778	in-kernel modules thus causing the above errors.
		779	</p>
		780
		781	<p>
		782	The solution is quite easy. We just need to manually remove the problem causing
		783	directory after you unmerge <c>alsa-driver</c>. Be sure to remove the correct
		784	kernel version and not the current one!
		785	</p>
		786
		787	<pre caption="Removing the alsa-driver modules">
		788	<comment>(Replace KERNELVER with your kernel version)</comment>
		789	# <i>rm -rf /lib/modules/KERNELVER/alsa-driver</i>
		790	</pre>
		791
		792	<p>
		793	Another reason for error messages similar to the ones above could be a file in
		794	<path>/etc/modules.d</path> supplying a <c>device_node</c> parameter when it
		795	isn't required. Confirm that this is indeed the issue and find out which file
		796	is the culprit.
		797	</p>
		798
		799	<pre caption="Confirming and searching for device_node">
		800	<comment>(Check dmesg to confirm)</comment>
		801	# <i>dmesg \| grep device_mode</i>
		802	snd: Unknown parameter `device_mode'
		803	<comment>(Now, to get to the source of the issue)</comment>
		804	# <i>grep device_mode /etc/modules.d/*</i>
		805	</pre>
		806
		807	<p>
		808	Usually it is a file called <path>alsa</path> with the line <c>options snd
		809	device_mode=0666</c>. Remove this line and restart the alsasound service and
		810	that should take care of this issue.
		811	</p>
		812
		813	</body>
		814	</section>
		815	</chapter>
		816
		817	<chapter>
		818	<title>Other things ALSA</title>
		819	<section>
		820	<title>Setting up MIDI support</title>
		821	<body>
		822
		823	<p>
		824	If your sound card is one of those that come with on-board MIDI synthesizers
		825	and you would like to listen to some .mid files, you have to install
		826	<c>awesfx</c> which is basically a set of utilities for controlling the AWE32
		827	driver. We need to install it first. If you don't have a hardware synthesizer,
		828	you can use a virtual one. Please see the section on
		829	<uri link="#vsynth">Virtual Synthesizers</uri> for more information.
		830	</p>
		831
		832	<pre caption="Installing awesfx">
		833	# <i>emerge awesfx</i>
		834	</pre>
		835
271	<note>	836	<note>
272	You can also add this value in <path>/etc/make.conf</path>, so when you have	837	You will need to copy over SoundFont (SF2) files from your sound card's driver
273	to emerge the alsa-driver later on you can just run <c>emerge alsa-driver</c>.	838	CD or a Windows installation into <path>/usr/share/sounds/sf2/</path>. For
274	For example, like this: <c>echo 'ALSA_CARDS="emu10k1"' >> /etc/make.conf</c>	839	example a sound font file for the Creative SBLive! card would be 8MBGMSFX.SF2.
275	</note>	840	</note>
276		841
		842	<p>
		843	After copying over the Soundfont files, we can then play a midi file as shown.
		844	You can also add the <c>asfxload</c> command to
		845	<path>/etc/conf.d/local.start</path>, so that the sound font is loaded
		846	every time the system starts up.
		847	</p>
		848
277	<note>	849	<note>
278	When you want to install ALSA drivers for more than one soundcard, you could	850	<path>/mnt</path> paths mentioned in the code listing(s) below will <e>not</e>
279	set ALSA_CARDS to a space-separated list of drivers; like this: <c>env	851	be the same in your machine. They are just an example. Please be careful to
280	ALSA_CARDS='emu10k1 intel8x0 ens1370' emerge alsa-driver</c>	852	change the path to suit your machine.
281	</note>	853	</note>
282		854
283	<note>	855	<pre caption="Loading Soundfonts">
284	If you want to have OSS compatibility, make sure to emerge <i>alsa-oss</i>, it	856	<comment>(First, copy the Soundfont)</comment>
285	is the ALSA/OSS compatibility wrapper.	857	# <i>cp /mnt/win2k/Program\ Files/CreativeSBLive2k/SFBank/8MBGMSFX.SF2 /usr/share/sounds/sf2/</i>
286	</note>	858	<comment>(Or get it from your SoundBlaster CD)</comment>
		859	# <i>cp /mnt/cdrom/AUDIO/ENGLISH/SFBANK/8MBGMSFX.SF2 /usr/share/sounds/sf2/</i>
		860	<comment>(We load the specific Soundfont)</comment>
		861	# <i>asfxload /usr/share/sounds/sf2/8MBGMSFX.SF2</i>
		862	</pre>
287		863
288	<note>
289	If you plan on recompiling your kernels numerous times, it might
290	be adviseable to emerge <c>alsa-driver</c> with <c>--buildpkg</c>. This
291	will create a binary package for it. Later, after recompiling your kernel,
292	you can just do <c>emerge --usepkg alsa-driver</c> which will install the
293	binary package instead of recompiling it completely. If 'depmod -a' ever
294	complains about sound drivers having unreferenced symbols when you do this,
295	you will need to recompile the alsa-driver package from source.
296	</note>
297
298	<p>
299	After this, the ALSA modules should be installed on your system.
300	</p>	864	<p>
		865	You can now play midi files using a program like <c>aplaymidi</c>. Run
		866	<c>aplaymidi -l</c> to get a list of available ports and then pick one
		867	to play the file on.
		868	</p>
301		869
		870	<pre caption="Playing MIDI">
		871	<comment>(Check open ports)</comment>
		872	# <i>aplaymidi -l</i>
		873	Port Client name Port name
		874	64:0 EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART) EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART)
		875	65:0 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 0
		876	65:1 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 1
		877	65:2 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 2
		878	65:3 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 3
		879	<comment>(Pick a port, and play a mid file)</comment>
		880	# <i> aplaymidi --port=65:0 /mnt/shyam/music/midi/mi2.mid</i>
		881	</pre>
		882
302	</body>	883	</body>
303	</section>
304	<section>	884	</section>
305	<title>Configuration of ALSA</title>	885	<section id="vsynth">
306	<body>	886	<title>Virtual Synthesizers</title>
307
308	<p>
309	Let's start configuring now to get ALSA working properly. We'll need to edit
310	some files, to let our system know about the freshly installed ALSA modules.
311	</p>
312
313	<p>
314	First, install <c>alsa-utils</c> on your system:
315	</p>
316
317	<pre caption = "Emerging alsa-utils">
318	# <i>emerge alsa-utils</i>
319	</pre>
320
321	<p>
322	Hereafter, we need to edit <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path>.
323	</p>
324
325	<warn>
326	There is no need to edit <path>/etc/modules.conf</path>. Instead, always edit
327	files in <path>/etc/modules.d</path> and run <c>modules-update</c> to generate
328	<path>/etc/modules.conf</path> from the updated data.
329	</warn>
330
331	<pre caption="In /etc/modules.d/alsa">
332	## and then run `modules-update' command.
333	## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.
334	##
335	## ALSA portion
336	alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1
337	## alias snd-card-1 snd-intel8x0
338	## alias snd-card-2 snd-ens1370
339	## OSS/Free portion
340	alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
341	## alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
342	## alias sound-slot-2 snd-card-2
343	##
344	</pre>
345
346	<note>
347	If you have more than one soundcard, add more <c>snd-card</c> and <c>snd-slot</c>
348	aliases and adjust the <c>cards_limit</c> value at the end of the file. You can
349	find examples for configurations with two or more soundcards in <uri
350	link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-howto/c1660.htm">Chapter 6</uri>
351	of the <uri
352	link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-howto/alsa-howto.html">ALSA
353	Howto</uri>.
354	</note>
355
356	<p>
357	Last thing to do in this file, almost at the end, check if these lines are there
358	and uncommented:
359	</p>
360
361	<pre caption="Near the end of /etc/modules.d/alsa">
362	alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
363	alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
364	alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
365	</pre>
366
367	<p>
368	After double-checking the file <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path> to make sure
369	everyting is ok, run <c>modules-update</c>.
370	</p>
371
372	<pre caption="Running modules-update">
373	# <i>modules-update</i>
374	</pre>
375
376	<note>
377	Running <c>modules-update</c> here will insert the data from
378	<path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path> into <path>/etc/modules.conf</path>
379	</note>
380
381	<p>
382	You should also verify that <path>/etc/devfsd.conf</path> has the alsa devices
383	and permissions correctly registered.
384	</p>
385
386	<pre caption="/etc/devfsd.conf">
387	# ALSA/OSS stuff
388	# Comment/change these if you want to change the permissions on
389	# the audio devices
390	LOOKUP snd MODLOAD ACTION snd
391	LOOKUP dsp MODLOAD
392	LOOKUP mixer MODLOAD
393	LOOKUP midi MODLOAD
394	REGISTER sound/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660
395	REGISTER snd/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660
396	</pre>
397
398	<note>
399	Notice that devfsd.conf sets <path>/dev/sound</path> permissions to be
400	root.audio. Thus, for non-root users to use audio they will have to be part of
401	the audio group.
402	</note>
403
404	</body>	887	<body>
405	</section>
406	</chapter>
407		888
408	<chapter>
409	<title>Starting ALSA</title>
410	<section>
411	<title>Adding alsasound to a runlevel</title>
412	<body>
413
414	<p>
415	An init script is provided for you which will install all necessary sound
416	drivers for your card (including the OSS support drivers if you set USE=oss).
417	The first thing to do now is to make ALSA startup at boot time:
418	</p>	889	<p>
419		890	If your sound card lacks a hardware synthesizer, you could use a virtual one
420	<pre caption="Add ALSA to the boot runlevel">	891	like <c>timidity++</c>. Installation is a breeze.
421	# <i>rc-update add alsasound boot</i>
422	</pre>
423
424	<warn>
425	Note that the alsasound script should be added to the "boot" runlevel, not the
426	"default" runlevel.
427	</warn>
428
429	</body>
430	</section>
431	<section>
432	<title>Running and unmuting</title>
433	<body>
434
435	<p>	892	</p>
436	Since we're Linux users, we don't want to reboot. So we'll start the alsasound
437	script manually.
438	</p>
439		893
440	<pre caption="Starting ALSA">
441	# <i>/etc/init.d/alsasound start</i>
442	</pre>
443
444	<p>
445	ALSA is running now. If everything is ok, you should be able to see the ALSA
446	modules loaded when running <c>lsmod</c>. However, sound won't work yet,
447	because the channels are still muted. We need <c>amixer</c> to fix this.
448	</p>
449
450	<pre caption = "Running amixer">
451	# <i>amixer</i>
452	</pre>
453
454	<!-- alsasound init script will do this for them now...
455	<warn>
456	You shouldn't get this, but <e>if</e> you get an error about "amixer: Mixer
457	attach default error: No such file or directory", you should manually modprobe
458	<c>snd-mixer-oss</c> and <c>snd-pcm-oss</c> once. After that run amixer again.
459	</warn>
460
461	<pre caption="Only if you get an error when running amixer">
462	# <i>modprobe snd-mixer-oss</i>
463	# <i>modprobe snd-pcm-oss</i>
464	# <i>amixer</i>
465	</pre>
466	-->
467
468	<p>
469	If you got this far, now unmute Master and PCM channels. Some hardware
470	even requires you to unmute the center channel or even the surround
471	channel.
472	</p>
473
474	<pre caption = "Unmuting channels">
475	# <i>amixer set Master 100 unmute</i>
476	# <i>amixer set PCM 100 unmute</i>
477	<comment>Only if the above doesn't succeed on its own:</comment>
478	# <i>amixer set Center 100 unmute</i>
479	# <i>amixer set Surround 100 unmute</i>
480	<comment>Test the sound:</comment>
481	# <i>aplay $KDEDIR/share/sounds/pop.wav</i> <codenote>(pop.wav is part of KDE)</codenote>
482	</pre>
483
484	<p>
485	We check to see if sound is working by using the aplay (alsa play) command. If
486	you hear a pop, then sound is indeed working. Then, adjust the volume settings
487	to your liking; the ncurses-based <c>alsamixer</c> is a great way to get them
488	"just so".
489	</p>
490
491	<p>
492	When you reboot your system, the <c>alsasound</c> init script will
493	properly save and restore your volume settings.
494	</p>
495
496	</body>
497	</section>
498	</chapter>
499
500	<chapter>
501	<title>MIDI Support</title>
502	<section>
503	<title>Hardware Synthesizer</title>
504	<body>
505
506	<p>
507	Some sound cards (SBLive, Audigy, and others) come with onboard MIDI synthesizers.
508	To use them, you must first install the <c>awesfx</c> package.
509	</p>
510
511	<pre caption="Install awesfx">
512	# <i>emerge awesfx</i>
513	</pre>
514
515	<p>
516	Now, you should place your sound fonts in <path>/usr/share/sfbank/</path>. You
517	can probably get the sound fonts off of the windows driver CD for your sound card.
518	With the SBLive, one of the included sound font files is called 8MBGMSFX.SF2.
519	</p>
520
521	<note>
522	On some recents CD supplied with a SBLive, the font file is called CT4GMSFX.SF2.
523	If it is your case, please replace all occurrences of 8MBGMSFX.SF2 with
524	CT4GMSFX.SF2 in the examples.
525	</note>
526
527	<p>
528	After copying over the sound font you want to use, you need to select it for use
529	with <c>/usr/bin/sfxload</c>.
530	</p>
531
532	<pre caption="Selecting the sound font">
533	# <i>/usr/bin/sfxload /usr/share/sfbank/8MBGMSFX.SF2</i>
534	</pre>
535
536	<note>
537	You may wish to place this command in /etc/conf.d/local.start or in the startup
538	script for your sound card (/etc/alsa.d/emu10k1) to make sure it gets loaded
539	at startup.
540	</note>
541
542	</body>
543	</section>
544	<section>
545	<title>Timidity++ Virtual Synthesizer</title>
546	<body>
547
548	<p>
549	If your sound card does not come with a hardware synthesizer (or you don't
550	want to use it), you can use <c>timidity++</c> to provide you with a virtual
551	synthesizer. Start by emerging this package:
552	</p>
553
554	<pre caption="Installing Timidity++">	894	<pre caption="Installing timidity++">
555	# <i>emerge timidity++</i>	895	# <i>emerge timidity++</i>
556	</pre>	896	</pre>
557		897
558	<p>	898	<p>
559	A sample configuration file will be installed for you in	899	For timidity to play sounds, it needs a sound font. If you do not have any,
560	<path>/usr/share/timitidy/config/timidity.cfg</path>. If you don't have a	900	install <c>timidity-eawpatches</c> or <c>timidity-shompatches</c> which will
561	timidity++ configuration setup yet, you can just use this one.	901	give you some sound fonts. You can have multiple sound font configurations
562	</p>	902	installed, and you can place your own in <path>/usr/share/timidity/</path>.
563		903	To switch between different timidity configurations, you should use the
564	<pre caption="Use the default Timidity++ configuration file">	904	<c>timidity-update</c> tool provided in the timidity++ package.
565	# <i>cp /usr/share/timitidy/config/timidity.cfg /usr/share/timidity</i>
566	</pre>
567
568	<p>	905	</p>
569	Now, you need to enable the init script to run when your system boots	906
570	and enable it now.	907	<pre caption="Installing sound fonts">
		908	# <i>emerge timidity-eawpatches</i>
		909	# <i>timidity-update -g -s eawpatches</i>
		910
		911	<comment>(or)</comment>
		912
		913	# <i>emerge timidity-shompatches</i>
		914	# <i>timidity-update -g -s shompatches</i>
		915	</pre>
		916
571	</p>	917	<p>
		918	Don't forget to add <c>timidity</c> to the default runlevel.
		919	</p>
572		920
573	<pre caption="Add timidity to default runlevel and start it now">	921	<pre caption="Adding timidity to the default runlevel">
574	# <i>rc-update add timidity default</i>	922	# <i>rc-update add timidity default</i>
575	# <i>/etc/init.d/timidity start</i>	923	# <i>/etc/init.d/timidity start</i>
576	</pre>	924	</pre>
577		925
578	<p>	926	<p>
579	Note that there is a configuration file for the init script that you can	927	You can now try out <uri link="#doc_chap4_pre3">Playing MIDI</uri> files.
580	modify in <path>/etc/conf.d/timidity</path>, and sane defaults have been
581	chosen for you.
582	</p>	928	</p>
583		929
584	</body>	930	</body>
585	</section>
586	<section>	931	</section>
587	<title>Testing MIDI Support</title>
588	<body>
589
590	<p>
591	You can use <c>pmidi</c> to test out your MIDI configuration. To do so,
592	you need to first emerge its package.
593	</p>
594
595	<pre caption="Installing pmidi">
596	# <i>emerge pmidi</i>
597	</pre>
598
599	<p>
600	The '-l' command line option to pmidi will list all detected MIDI output ports,
601	and '-p' can be used to select the one for playback. Check to see what
602	MIDI output ports are available on your system:
603	</p>
604
605	<pre caption="Listed ports when using hardware synthesizer">
606	# <i>pmidi -l</i>
607	Port Client name Port name
608	64:0 Rawmidi 0 - EMU10K1 MPU-401 (U EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART)
609	65:0 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 0
610	65:1 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 1
611	65:2 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 2
612	65:3 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 3
613	</pre>
614
615	<pre caption="Listed ports when using Timidity++">
616	# <i>pmidi -l</i>
617	Port Client name Port name
618	64:0 Rawmidi 0 - ES1371 ES1371
619	128:0 TiMidity TiMidity port 0
620	128:1 TiMidity TiMidity port 1
621	128:2 TiMidity TiMidity port 2
622	128:3 TiMidity TiMidity port 3
623	</pre>
624
625	<p>
626	Now, try playing a MIDI file to make sure everything works:
627	</p>
628
629	<pre caption="Play a song">
630	# <i>pmidi -p 65:0 Final\ Fantasy\ 7\ -\ Aerith\'s\ Theme.mid</i>
631	or
632	# <i>pmidi -p 128:0 Final\ Fantasy\ 7\ -\ Aerith\'s\ Theme.mid</i>
633	</pre>
634
635	</body>
636	</section>	932	<section>
637	</chapter>	933	<title>Tools and Firmware</title>
		934	<body>
638		935
639	<chapter>	936	<p>
640	<title>Final Notes</title>	937	Some specific sound cards can benefit from certain tools provided by the
		938	<c>alsa-tools</c> and <c>alsa-firmware</c> packages. If you need
		939	<c>alsa-tools</c>, be sure to define the ALSA_TOOLS variable in
		940	<path>/etc/make.conf</path> with the tools you require. For instance:
		941	</p>
		942
		943	<pre caption="Selecting ALSA Tools in /etc/make.conf">
		944	ALSA_TOOLS="as10k1 ac3dec"
		945	</pre>
		946
		947	<p>
		948	If the ALSA_TOOLS variable is not set, all available tools will be built.
		949	Now, install the <c>alsa-tools</c> (and/or <c>alsa-firmware</c>) package(s):
		950	</p>
		951
		952	<pre caption="Installing ALSA Tools">
		953	# <i>emerge alsa-tools</i>
		954	</pre>
		955
		956	</body>
641	<section>	957	</section>
642	<title>After kernel-upgrades...</title>
643	<body>
644
645	<p>
646	When you ever rebuild your kernel, or upgrade to another kernel, you'll have to
647	rebuild the ALSA modules.
648	</p>
649
650	<p>
651	Although you might have installed <c>alsa-driver</c>, <c>alsa-lib</c> and
652	<c>alsa-utils</c>, only the first will have to be installed again, since it will
653	put the alsa modules in <path>/lib/modules/*/kernel/sound/pci/</path>.
654	</p>
655
656	<pre caption="Needed after each kernel compile">
657	# <i>emerge alsa-driver</i>
658	</pre>
659
660	</body>
661	</section>	958	<section>
		959	<title>A Big thank you to...</title>
		960	<body>
		961
		962	<p>
		963	Everyone who contributed to the earlier version of the Gentoo ALSA Guide:
		964	Vincent Verleye, Grant Goodyear, Arcady Genkin, Jeremy Huddleston,
		965	John P. Davis, Sven Vermeulen, Benny Chuang, Tiemo Kieft and Erwin.
		966	</p>
		967
		968	</body>
662	<section>	969	</section>
663	<title>alsa-tools and alsa-firmware</title>
664	<body>
665
666	<p>
667	The alsa-tools and alsa-firmware packages contain tools useful to only users of
668	specific sound cards. Most users will not need these. If you do need alsa-tools,
669	you can set the environment variable 'ALSA_TOOLS' to install just the needed tools
670	for your card:
671	</p>
672
673	<pre caption="Installing alsa-tools">
674	# <i>env ALSA_TOOLS='as10k1 ac3dec' emerge alsa-tools</i>
675	</pre>
676
677	</body>
678	</section>	970	<section>
679	<section>	971	<title>References</title>
680	<title>Mixing versions</title>
681	<body>
682
683	<p>
684	Often times, different versions of <c>alsa-driver</c>, <c>alsa-lib</c>,
685	<c>alsa-utils</c>, <c>alsa-tools</c>, and <c>alsa-oss</c> will work with each
686	other, but it is recommended that you try to keep the versions in sync.
687	</p>
688
689	</body>	972	<body>
690	</section>
691	<section>
692	<title>/etc/modules.autoload</title>
693	<body>
694
695	<p>
696	You won't have to edit this file for use with ALSA. After doing <c>rc-update add
697	alsasound boot</c>, the correct modules will be loaded at startup.
698	</p>
699
700	<!--
701	<p>
702	It's not necessary to add <c>snd-pcm-oss</c> or <c>snd-mixer-oss</c> in this
703	file. Check the <uri link="http://www.djcj.org/LAU/guide/alsbook/faq1.html">this
704	FAQ</uri> for more info.
705	</p>
706	-->
707
708	</body>
709	</section>
710	<section>
711	<title>Known bugs</title>
712	<body>
713
714	<note>
715	This guide lags behind on the alsa-development. Chances are these bugs
716	are already fixed when you read this.
717	</note>
718		973
719	<ul>	974	<ul>
720	<li>
721	If you have <b>lots of noise</b> when using <b>oss</b> emulation, add
722	<e>options snd-pcm-oss dsp_map=1</e> to <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path>
723	</li>
724	</ul>
725
726	</body>
727	</section>
728	<section>
729	<title>Activating Joystick Support</title>
730	<body>
731
732	<p>
733	If your soundcard has a joystick plug, you might be interested in activating
734	joystick support for your soundcard. If so, start by verifying if your soundcard
735	driver has a joystick parameter. You can verify this by running <c>modinfo</c>
736	against your <path>snd-<your chipset></path>. For instance, for the
737	<c>snd-via82xx</c>:
738	</p>
739
740	<pre caption="Running modinfo">
741	# <i>modinfo snd-via82xx</i>
742	filename: /lib/modules/2.4.22-ck2/snd-via82xx.o
743	description: "VIA VT82xx audio"
744	author: "Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>"
745	license: "GPL"
746	parm: index int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Index value for VIA 82xx bridge."
747	parm: id string array (min = 1, max = 8), description "ID string for VIA 82xx bridge."
748	parm: enable int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Enable audio part of VIA 82xx bridge."
749	parm: mpu_port long array (min = 1, max = 8), description "MPU-401 port. (VT82C686x only)"
750	<i>parm: joystick int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Enable joystick. (VT82C686x only)"</i>
751	parm: ac97_clock int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "AC'97 codec clock (default 48000Hz)."
752	parm: dxs_support int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Support for DXS channels
753	(0 = auto, 1 = enable, 2 = disable, 3 = 48k only, 4 = no VRA)"
754	</pre>
755
756	<p>
757	If it has the <c>joystick</c> parameter, then append <c>joystick=1</c> to your
758	<c>options</c> line in <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path>. For instance, for the
759	<c>snd-via82xx</c>:
760	</p>
761
762	<pre caption="Adding the joystick parameter">
763	alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx
764	options snd-via82xx joystick=1
765	</pre>
766
767	</body>
768	</section>
769	<section>
770	<title>More links...</title>
771	<body>
772
773	<p>
774	You could check these for additional info:
775	</p>
776
777	<ul>
778	<li>
779	<uri link="http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/desktop.xml">The Gentoo Linux
780	Desktop Configuration Guide</uri>
781	</li>
782	<li>
783	<uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org">ALSA Project Homepage</uri>	975	<li><uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/">The ALSA Project</uri></li>
784	</li>
785	<li>
786	<uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/documentation.php3">ALSA Users
787	Documentation</uri>
788	</li>
789	<li>
790	<uri link="http://www.djcj.org">ALSA Howto's and FAQ's</uri>
791	</li>
792	<li>
793	<uri link="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/index.html">Linux Sound
794	HOWTO</uri>
795	</li>
796	<li>
797	<uri link="http://linux-sound.org/">Sound and MIDI Software For Linux</uri>	976	<li><uri link="http://linux-sound.org">Linux Sound/MIDI Software</uri></li>
798	</li>
799	</ul>	977	</ul>
800		978
801	</body>	979	</body>
802	</section>	980	</section>
803	</chapter>	981	</chapter>

 Legend:



Removed from v.1.29
 


changed lines


 
Added in v.1.66
 Legend:



Removed from v.1.29
 


changed lines


 
Added in v.1.66
-Removed from v.1.29
+Added in v.1.66

	ViewVC Help
Powered by ViewVC 1.1.13