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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 1.48 2005/02/05 14:16:29 swift Exp $ -->
2	<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">	3	<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
3		4
4	<guide link = "/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml">	5	<guide link="/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml">
5	<title>Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide</title>	6	<title>Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide</title>
6	<author title="Author"><mail link="zu@pandora.be">	7	<author title="Author">
7	Vincent Verleye</mail>	8	<mail link="zu@pandora.be">Vincent Verleye</mail>
8	</author>	9	</author>
9		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>
10	<author title="Editor"><mail link="zhen@gentoo.org">	19	<author title="Editor"><!-- zhen@gentoo.org -->
11	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>
12	</author>	33	</author>
13		34
14	<abstract>	35	<abstract>
15	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
16	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>
17		40
		41	<license/>
		42
18	<version>1.2</version>	43	<version>1.5.10</version>
19	<date>09 February 2003</date>	44	<date>2005-02-05</date>
20		45
21	<chapter>	46	<chapter>
22	<title>Introduction</title>	47	<title>The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture</title>
23	<section>	48	<section>
24	<title>What is ALSA?</title>	49	<title>What is ALSA?</title>
25	<body>
26	<p>
27	The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) is a project to improve the Linux sound subsystem by rewriting
28	large chunks of it.
29	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.
30	</p>
31
32	<p>
33	ALSA provides audio and MIDI functionality for Linux.
34	</p>
35
36	<p>
37	Quoted from <uri>http://www.alsa-project.org</uri>, ALSA has the following features:
38	<ul><li> Efficient support for all types of audio interfaces, from consumer soundcards to professional multichannel audio interfaces.</li>
39	<li> Fully modularized sound drivers.</li>
40	<li> SMP and thread-safe design.</li>
41	<li> User space library (alsa-lib) to simplify application programming and provide higher level functionality.</li>
42	<li> Support for the older OSS API, providing binary compatibility for most OSS programs.</li>
43	</ul>
44	There's lots more to ALSA however, like support for Full Duplex playback and recording, multiple soundcard support,
45	hardware mixing of streams, extensive mixer capabilities (to support advanced features of new soundcards), ...
46	</p>
47	</body>	50	<body>
48	</section>	51
49	<section>
50	<title>Why use ALSA?</title>
51	<body>
52	<p>	52	<p>
53	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
54	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
55	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.
56	</p>	56	</p>
		57
57	<p>	58	<p>
58	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
59	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
60	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
61	and MIDI sequencing.	62	provides a backwards compatibility layer with OSS.
62	</p>	63	</p>
63	</body>	64
64	</section>
65	<section>
66	<title>What cards does ALSA support?</title>
67	<body>
68	<p>
69	ALSA tries to support as many (new) cards as possible by providing open-source drivers.
70	However, some vendors may provide binary-only packages.
71	</p>
72	<p>To know if your card is supported, you can find a Soundcard Matrix of supported and not-supported cards here:
73	<uri>http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/</uri>.
74	</p>
75	</body>	65	</body>
76	</section>	66	</section>
77	</chapter>	67	</chapter>
78
79	<chapter>	68	<chapter>
80	<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>
81	<section>	82	</section>
		83	<section>
82	<title>Kernel modules</title>	84	<title>Kernel Modules</title>
83	<body>	85	<body>
84	<p>	86
85	Since we're still using 2.4.x kernel sources, we'll have to compile kernel modules and ALSA modules separately.
86	</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. Additionally,
		91	make sure you disable <e>Open Sound System</e> in your kernel configuration.
		92	If you don't, your system may try to use these drivers rather than the alsa
		93	ones. If you see a message about 'sound card not detected' and you are sure
		94	you have the correct driver, this is probably the reason.
87	<p>	95	</p>
88	First we'll make sure that our kernel configuration is ready for use with ALSA.	96
89	All you need in your kernel configuration is having Sound Card Support set to be built as a module (M).	97	<warn>
90	This will build <c>soundcore.o</c>.	98	If you use a 2.6 kernel, you may use the drivers provided in the kernel, but
		99	we still recommend that you use media-sound/alsa-driver as they are more up
		100	to date than what is provided in the kernel tree. If you still wish to use
		101	the drivers provided with your kernel, you can skip the rest of this section
		102	and continue with <uri link="#alsa-utils">Installing the ALSA Utils</uri>.
		103	</warn>
		104
91	</p>	105	<p>
		106	The first step in installing your sound drivers is figuring out what sound
		107	card you have. If you don't already know, an easy trick is to search
		108	for "audio" in the output of the <c>lspci</c> command. You can install
		109	this tool with <c>emerge pciutils</c>.
92	<p>	110	</p>
93	<note>	111
94	Possibly, this will also work when you built Sound Card Support in the kernel (Y) instead of building it as a module (M).	112	<pre caption="Finding out the soundcard type">
95	However, the official ALSA documentation suggests building it as a module, since ALSA will try loading it.	113	# <i>lspci \| grep -i audio</i>
96	</note>	114	Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 64).
97	</p>
98	<p>If you already have a working kernel configuration, make sure you remove all sound drivers (except for Sound Card Support).
99	If you wish to do this without having to reboot, you could do like this:
100	</p>
101	<pre>	115	</pre>
102	# <c>cd /usr/src/linux</c>	116
103	# <c>cp .config ~/</c>
104	# <c>make mrproper</c>
105	# <c>cp ~/.config .</c>
106	# <c>make menuconfig</c>
107	</pre>
108	<p>
109	Now select <e>Sound Card Support</e> as Module (M) and deselect all other sound drivers.
110	Exit and say Y to save your kernel configuration.
111	After that, build the modules:
112	</p>	117	<p>
		118	Now go to the <uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc">ALSA Soundcard
		119	Matrix</uri> and search for your soundcard. In the above example you should go
		120	to the "VIA" manufacturer. You will receive a table with the known chipsets of
		121	that vendor. The chipset in the above example is "via82c686"; the "Details" link
		122	then informs me that the driver is called <path>via82xx</path>. This is all the
		123	information you need, so you can safely discard the rest of that document.
		124	</p>
		125
		126	<p>
		127	Based on this information we can now install the <c>alsa-driver</c> for our
		128	soundcard. First edit <path>/etc/make.conf</path> and <e>add</e> a new option
		129	called ALSA_CARDS to it. Inside this variable you declare the soundcard driver
		130	you want to use:
		131	</p>
		132
		133	<pre caption="Editing /etc/make.conf for ALSA_CARDS">
		134	ALSA_CARDS="via82xx"
113	<pre>	135	</pre>
114	# <c>make dep clean</c>	136
115	# <c>make modules modules_install</c>	137	<warn>
116	</pre>	138	If you have multiple sound cards in your system, separate them with a comma
117	<p>	139	in the ALSA_CARDS variable. Ex: ALSA_CARDS="via82xx,emu10k1"
118	Before installing your new modules, this last line will delete all your previous modules,	140	</warn>
119	even the ones from a previous ALSA installation.	141
120	</p>	142	<p>
		143	If you want OSS compatibility (highly recommended), you should add 'oss' to
		144	your USE flags in <path>/etc/make.conf</path>. After that, you are ready to
		145	install <c>alsa-driver</c>:
121	<p>	146	</p>
		147
		148	<pre caption="Installing ALSA Drivers">
		149	# <i>emerge alsa-driver</i>
		150	</pre>
		151
122	<impo>	152	<impo>
123	This means, whenever you recompile your kernel later on, you MUST recompile <c>alsa-driver</c>.	153	Whenever you (re)compile your kernel sources, chances are that the ALSA drivers
		154	will be deleted. It is therefore adviseable to rerun <c>emerge alsa-driver</c>
		155	every time you (re)compile your kernel. Note that this will compile the
		156	drivers for the kernel in /usr/src/linux, NOT the running kernel.
124	</impo>	157	</impo>
125	</p>
126	<p>
127	<note>However, there's no need to reinstall <c>nvidia-kernel</c>, the Nvidia drivers are in a separate directory
128	in <path>/lib/modules/*/video</path> and won't get deleted by a <c>make modules modules_install</c>
129	</note>
130	</p>
131	</body>
132	</section>
133		158
		159	</body>
134	<section>	160	</section>
135	<title>ALSA modules</title>	161	<section id="alsa-utils">
136	<body>	162	<title>Installing the ALSA Utils</title>
137
138	<p>
139	Now it's time to install the ALSA drivers for your soundcard(s). If your soundcard is PCI, you can find out the name
140	and type of your soundcard by looking at the output of /proc/pci
141	<pre>#<c>grep audio /proc/pci</c></pre>
142	</p>
143
144	<p>
145	<warn>
146	If you had a previous sound setup and there are still non-ALSA sound modules loaded, unload them <e>now</e>.
147	Check with <c>lsmod</c> and use <c>rmmod</c> to unload all sound-related modules on your system.
148	</warn>
149	</p>
150
151	<p>
152	We could simply do an <c>emerge alsa-driver</c> now, this would compile and install <e>all</e> ALSA sound drivers.
153	</p>
154	<p>
155	However, to save some time, lookup the <e>Module Name</e> of your soundcard(s) on the
156	<uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc">ALSA Soundcard Matrix</uri> under the <e>Install</e> section.
157	Mine is <c>EMU10K1</c>, since I have an SBlive! soundcard.
158	We'll set ALSA_CARDS environment to this value before emerging, so emerge will only compile the drivers we need.
159	</p>
160
161	<p>
162	<pre>
163	# <c>env ALSA_CARDS='emu10k1' emerge alsa-driver</c>
164	</pre>
165	</p>
166	<p>
167	<note>
168	When you want to install ALSA drivers for more than one soundcard, you could set ALSA_CARDS to a space-separated list
169	of drivers; like this: <c>env ALSA_CARDS='emu10k1 intel8x0 ens1370' emerge alsa-driver</c>
170	</note>
171
172	<note>If you want to have OSS compatibility, make sure to emerge <i>alsa-oss</i>, it is the ALSA/OSS compatibility
173	wrapper. </note>
174
175	</p>
176	<p>
177	After this, the ALSA modules should be installed on your system.
178	</p>
179	</body>	163	<body>
180	</section>	164
		165	<p>
		166	If the in-kernel OSS compatibility is not sufficient for your needs, you will
		167	want to install <c>alsa-oss</c>. This will provide you with the 'aoss'
		168	executable which can be used as demonstrated:
		169	</p>
		170
		171	<pre caption="More OSS compatibility layer">
		172	# <i>emerge alsa-oss</i>
		173	# <i>aoss mpg123 music.mp3</i>
		174	</pre>
		175
		176	<p>
		177	Now install the ALSA Utils on your system (this is mandatory):
		178	</p>
		179
		180	<pre caption="Installing ALSA Utils">
		181	# <i>emerge alsa-utils</i>
		182	</pre>
		183
		184	<p>
		185	Now that the utils are installed, it is time to configure ALSA...
		186	</p>
		187
		188	</body>
181	<section>	189	</section>
		190	</chapter>
		191	<chapter>
182	<title>Configuration of ALSA</title>	192	<title>Configuring ALSA</title>
		193	<section>
		194	<title>Automatically Loading the Kernel Modules</title>
183	<body>	195	<body>
184	<p>	196
185	Let's start configuring now to get ALSA working properly.
186	We'll need to edit some files, to let our system know about the freshly installed ALSA modules.
187	</p>	197	<p>
		198	If you use a modular kernel (such as when using <c>genkernel</c>) you have to
		199	edit <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path> so that it activates the necessary
		200	modules at boot time. For the soundcard in our example:
188	<p>	201	</p>
189	First file to edit is <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path>.	202
190	</p>
191	<warn>
192	There is no need to edit <path>/etc/modules.conf</path>. Instead, always edit files in <path>/etc/modules.d</path>.
193	</warn>
194	<p>
195	Check the ALSA portion <e>at the bottom of the file</e>.
196	By tweaking this line you can specify the max number of soundcards you have (generally, just one).
197	</p>
198	<p>
199	<pre caption="At the top of /etc/modules.d/alsa">	203	<pre caption="/etc/modules.d/alsa">
200	# Alsa 0.9.X kernel modules' configuration file.
201	# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml,v 1.7 2003/02/09 23:27:14 zhen Exp $
202
203	# ALSA portion
204	alias char-major-116 snd
205	<c>options snd major=116 cards_limit=1</c>
206	# OSS/Free portion
207	alias char-major-14 soundcore
208
209	##
210	## IMPORTANT:
211	</pre>
212	</p>
213	<p>
214	Now we'll specify the sounddriver(s) ALSA should use. In the same file, edit like this:
215	<pre caption="A bit lower in /etc/modules.d/alsa">
216	## and then run `update-modules' command.
217	## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.
218	##
219	## ALSA portion
220	<c>alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1</c>
221	<c>## If you have more than one, add:
222	## alias snd-card-1 snd-intel8x0	204	alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx
223	## alias snd-card-2 snd-ens1370</c>	205	<comment># The following is only needed when you want OSS compatibility</comment>
224	## OSS/Free portion
225	## alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0	206	alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
226	## alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
227	##
228	</pre>
229	</p>
230	<p>
231	<note>
232	If you have more than one soundcard, adjust the <c>cards_limit</c> value and add more snd-card aliases to the file.
233	I don't have experience with this, but you can find examples for configurations with two or more soundcards in
234	<uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-howto/c1660.htm">Chapter 6</uri>
235	of the <uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-howto/alsa-howto.html">ALSA Howto</uri>.
236	</note>
237	</p>
238	<p>
239	Last thing to do in this file, at the very bottom, check if these lines are there and uncommented:
240	<pre caption="at the very bottom of /etc/modules.d/alsa">
241	alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss	207	alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
242	alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss	208	alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
243	alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss	209	alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
244	</pre>	210	</pre>
		211
245	</p>	212	<p>
		213	Now run <c>modules-update</c> to save the changes you made to the
		214	<path>alsa</path> file into <path>/etc/modules.conf</path>:
246	<p>	215	</p>
247	Now double-check the file <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path> and when you're sure everyting is ok, run <c>update-modules</c>.	216
		217	<pre caption="Running modules-update">
		218	# <i>modules-update</i>
248	<pre>	219	</pre>
249	# <c>update-modules</c>	220
250	</pre>	221	</body>
		222	</section>
		223	<section>
		224	<title>Verifying the Device Files</title>
		225	<body>
		226
251	</p>	227	<p>
252	<note>	228	This should be done automatically for you on recent installs, but if you run
253	Running <c>update-modules</c> here will insert the data from <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path> into <path>/etc/modules.conf</path>	229	into problems, check that your ALSA devices and permissions are set correctly
254	</note>	230	by your /dev manager. If you use DevFS, check <path>/etc/devfsd.conf</path>
255	<p>	231	</p>
256	You should also verify that /etc/devfsd.conf has the alsa devices and permissions correctly registered.	232
257	</p>	233	<pre caption="/etc/devfsd.conf">
258	<pre>
259	# nano -w /etc/devfsd.conf
260	</pre>
261	<pre>
262	# ALSA/OSS stuff	234	# ALSA/OSS stuff
263	# Comment/change these if you want to change the permissions on	235	# Comment/change these if you want to change the permissions on
264	# the audio devices	236	# the audio devices
265	LOOKUP snd MODLOAD ACTION snd	237	LOOKUP snd MODLOAD ACTION snd
266	LOOKUP dsp MODLOAD	238	LOOKUP dsp MODLOAD
267	LOOKUP mixer MODLOAD	239	LOOKUP mixer MODLOAD
268	LOOKUP midi MODLOAD	240	LOOKUP midi MODLOAD
269	REGISTER sound/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660	241	REGISTER sound/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660
270	REGISTER snd/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660	242	REGISTER snd/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660
271	</pre>	243	</pre>
272	<note>	244
273	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.	245	</body>
274	</note>	246	</section>
		247	<section>
		248	<title>Having ALSA Activated at Boot</title>
		249	<body>
		250
		251	<p>
		252	To activate ALSA support at boot, add the <c>alsasound</c> init script to the
		253	boot runlevel:
		254	</p>
		255
		256	<pre caption="Adding alsasound to the boot runlevel">
		257	# <i>rc-update add alsasound boot</i>
		258	# <i>/etc/init.d/alsasound start</i>
		259	</pre>
		260
		261	</body>
		262	</section>
		263	<section>
		264	<title>Unmute the Channels</title>
		265	<body>
		266
		267	<p>
		268	By default, all sound channels are muted. To fix this, run <c>amixer</c>:
		269	</p>
		270
		271	<pre caption="Running amixer">
		272	# <i>amixer</i>
		273	</pre>
		274
		275	<p>
		276	If <c>amixer</c> produces lots of output then you're ready to unmute the
		277	channels. If you receive an error, doublecheck that your soundcard module is
		278	started.
		279	</p>
		280
		281	<p>
		282	Now unmute the <e>Master</e> and <e>PCM</e> channels. If this isn't sufficient,
		283	also unmute the <e>Center</e> and <e>Surround</e> channels.
		284	</p>
		285
		286	<pre caption="Unmuting the sound channels">
		287	<comment>(If you prefer an ncurses method:)</comment>
		288
		289	# <i>alsamixer</i>
		290
		291	<comment>(or)</comment>
		292
		293	# <i>amixer set Master 100% unmute</i>
		294	# <i>amixer set PCM 100% unmute</i>
		295	<comment>(Only if the above isn't sufficient:)</comment>
		296	# <i>amixer set Center 100% unmute</i>
		297	# <i>amixer set Surround 100% unmute</i>
		298	# <i>amixer set Headphone 100% unmute</i>
		299	</pre>
		300
		301
		302	<p>
		303	To check if your sound works, play a wave file (using <c>aplay</c>), mp3 (using
		304	<c>mpg123</c> or even <c>mplayer</c>) or any other sound file for that matter.
		305	</p>
		306
275	</body>	307	</body>
276	</section>	308	</section>
277	</chapter>	309	</chapter>
278	<chapter>	310	<chapter>
279	<title>Starting ALSA</title>	311	<title>Activating MIDI Support</title>
280	<section>
281	<title>Adding alsasound to a runlevel</title>
282	<body>
283	<p>
284	First thing to do now, is to make ALSA startup at boottime. Like this:
285	<pre>
286	# <c>rc-update add alsasound boot</c>
287	</pre>
288	</p>
289	<p>
290	<warn>Note that the alsasound script should be added to the "boot" runlevel, not the "default" runlevel.</warn>
291	</p>
292	</body>
293	</section>	312	<section>
		313	<title>Installing the Necessary Packages</title>
		314	<body>
		315
		316	<p>
		317	Some soundcards come with onboard MIDI synthesizers. To use them, you must first
		318	install the <c>awesfx</c> package:
		319	</p>
		320
		321	<pre caption="Installing the awesfx package">
		322	# <i>emerge awesfx</i>
		323	</pre>
		324
		325	<p>
		326	If you have a collection of sound fonts somewhere, place them in
		327	<path>/usr/share/sfbank</path>. For instance, the SBLive has a sound font file
		328	called <path>8MBGMSFX.SF2</path> or <path>CT4GMSFX.SF2</path>.
		329	</p>
		330
		331	<p>
		332	After copying over the sound font, select them using <c>asfxload</c>:
		333	</p>
		334
		335	<pre caption="Loading the sound font">
		336	# <i>asfxload /usr/share/sfbank/8MBGMSFX.SF2</i>
		337	</pre>
		338
		339	<p>
		340	You must have this command run every time you boot, so it is adviseable to add
		341	it to <path>/etc/conf.d/local.start</path> as well.
		342	</p>
		343
		344	<p>
		345	If you can't find soundfonts on your driver CD you can download some online from
		346	<uri>http://www.parabola.demon.co.uk/alsa/awe64.html</uri>.
		347	</p>
		348
		349	</body>
294	<section>	350	</section>
295	<title>Running and unmuting</title>	351	<section>
		352	<title>Timidity++ Virtual Synthesizer</title>
		353	<body>
		354
		355	<p>
		356	If your sound card does not come with a hardware synthesizer (or you don't want
		357	to use it), you can use <c>timidity++</c> to provide you with a virtual
		358	synthesizer. Start by emerging this package:
		359	</p>
		360
		361	<pre caption="Installing Timidity++">
		362	# <i>emerge timidity++</i>
		363	</pre>
		364
		365	<p>
		366	For timidity to play sounds, it needs a soundfont. If you do not have any,
		367	install <c>timidity-eawpatches</c> or <c>timidity-shompatches</c> which will
		368	give you some soundfonts. You can have multiple soundfont configurations
		369	installed, and you can place your own in <path>/usr/share/timidity/</path>.
		370	To switch between different timidity configurations, you should use the
		371	<e>timidity-update</e> tool provided in the timidity++ package.
		372	</p>
		373
		374	<pre caption="Installing soundfonts">
		375	# <i>emerge timidity-eawpatches</i>
		376	# <i>timidity-update -g -s eawpatches</i>
		377
		378	<comment>(or)</comment>
		379
		380	# <i>emerge timidity-shompatches</i>
		381	# <i>timidity-update -g -s shompatches</i>
		382	</pre>
		383
		384	<p>
		385	Don't forget to add <c>timidity</c> to the default runlevel.
		386	</p>
		387
		388	<pre caption="Adding timidity to the default runlevel">
		389	# <i>rc-update add timidity default</i>
		390	# <i>/etc/init.d/timidity start</i>
		391	</pre>
		392
296	<body>	393	</body>
297	<p>	394	</section>
298	Since we're Linux users, we don't want to reboot. So we'll start the alsasound script manually.	395	<section>
		396	<title>Testing MIDI Support</title>
		397	<body>
		398
299	</p>	399	<p>
		400	You can use <c>aplaymidi</c> from the ALSA Utils to test your MIDI
		401	configuration.
		402	</p>
		403
		404	<p>
		405	To see what MIDI output ports are available on your system, use the <c>-l</c>
		406	option:
		407	</p>
		408
		409	<pre caption="Viewing the MIDI output ports">
		410	# <i>aplaymidi -l</i>
300	<pre>	411	</pre>
301	# <c>/etc/init.d/alsasound start</c>	412
302	</pre>
303	<p>
304	ALSA is running now. If everything is ok, you should be able to see the ALSA modules loaded when running <c>lsmod</c>.
305	However, sound won't work yet, because the channels are still muted. We need <c>alsa-utils</c> for this.
306	</p>	413	<p>
		414	If all looks fine, try playing a MIDI file to make sure everything works. With
		415	the <c>-p</c> option you define what MIDI port you want to use.
		416	</p>
		417
		418	<pre caption="Playing a MIDI file">
		419	# <i>aplaymidi -p 65:0 "Final Fantasy 7 - Aerith' Theme.mid"</i>
307	<pre>	420	</pre>
308	# <c>emerge alsa-utils</c>	421
309	# <c>amixer</c>
310	</pre>
311	<p>
312	<warn>
313	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
314	<c>snd-mixer-oss</c> and <c>snd-pcm-oss</c> once. After that run amixer again.
315	</warn>
316	</p>
317	<pre caption="only if you get an error when running amixer">
318	# <c>insmod snd-mixer-oss</c>
319	# <c>insmod snd-pcm-oss</c>
320	# <c>amixer</c>
321	</pre>
322	<p>
323	If you got this far, now unmute both Master and PCM channels.
324	</p>
325	<p>
326	<pre>
327	# <c>amixer set Master 100 unmute</c>
328	# <c>amixer set PCM 100 unmute</c>
329	# <c>aplay /usr/kde/3/share/sounds/pop.wav</c> <codenote>(pop.wav is part of KDE)</codenote>
330	</pre>
331	</p>
332	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.
333	Then, adjust the volume settings to your liking; the ncurses-based <c>alsamixer</c> is a great way to get them "just so".
334	<p>
335	You may want to emerge <c>alsa-xmms</c> as that will provide ALSA support for XMMS.
336	</p>
337	When you reboot your system, the <e>alsasound</e> init script will properly save and restore your volume settings.
338	</body>	422	</body>
339	</section>	423	</section>
340	</chapter>	424	</chapter>
341	<chapter>	425	<chapter>
342	<title>Final Notes</title>	426	<title>Final Remarks</title>
343	<section>
344	<title>After kernel-upgrades..</title>
345	<body>
346	<p>When you ever rebuild your kernel, or upgrade to another kernel, you'll have to rebuild the ALSA modules.</p>
347	<p>Although you might have installed <c>alsa-driver</c>, <c>alsa-libs</c> and <c>alsa-utils</c>, only the first will
348	have to be installed again, since it will put the alsa modules in
349	<path>/lib/modules/*/kernel/sound/pci/</path>.</p>
350	<pre caption="needed after each kernel compile">
351	emerge alsa-driver
352	</pre>
353	</body>
354	</section>	427	<section>
		428	<title>Tools and Firmware</title>
		429	<body>
		430
		431	<p>
		432	Some specific sound cards can benefit from certain tools provided by the
		433	<c>alsa-tools</c> and <c>alsa-firmware</c> packages. If you need
		434	<c>alsa-tools</c>, be sure to define the ALSA_TOOLS variable in
		435	<path>/etc/make.conf</path> with the tools you require. For instance:
		436	</p>
		437
		438	<pre caption="Selecting ALSA Tools in /etc/make.conf">
		439	ALSA_TOOLS="as10k1 ac3dec"
		440	</pre>
		441
		442	<p>
		443	Then install the <c>alsa-tools</c> (and/or <c>alsa-firmware</c>) package(s):
		444	</p>
		445
		446	<pre caption="Installing ALSA Tools">
		447	# <i>emerge alsa-tools</i>
		448	</pre>
		449
		450	</body>
355	<section>	451	</section>
356	<title>/etc/modules.autoload</title>
357	<body>
358	<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
359	load the correct modules at startup.</p>
360	<p>It's not necessary to add <c>snd-pcm-oss</c> or <c>snd-mixer-oss</c> in this file.
361	Check the <uri link="http://www.djcj.org/LAU/guide/alsbook/faq1.html">this FAQ</uri> for more info.</p>
362	</body>
363	</section>	452	<section>
		453	<title>Activating Joystick Support</title>
		454	<body>
		455
		456	<p>
		457	If your soundcard has a joystick plug, you might be interested in activating
		458	joystick support for your soundcard. If so, start by verifying if your soundcard
		459	driver has a joystick parameter. You can verify this by running <c>modinfo</c>
		460	against your kernel module. For instance, for the <c>snd-via82xx</c>:
		461	</p>
		462
		463	<pre caption="Running modinfo">
		464	# <i>modinfo snd-via82xx</i>
		465	filename: /lib/modules/2.4.22-ck2/snd-via82xx.o
		466	description: "VIA VT82xx audio"
		467	author: "Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>"
		468	license: "GPL"
		469	parm: index int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Index value for
		470	VIA 82xx bridge."
		471	parm: id string array (min = 1, max = 8), description "ID string for VIA
		472	82xx bridge."
		473	parm: enable int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Enable audio part
		474	of VIA 82xx bridge."
		475	parm: mpu_port long array (min = 1, max = 8), description "MPU-401 port.
		476	(VT82C686x only)"
		477	<i>parm: joystick int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Enable
		478	joystick. (VT82C686x only)"</i>
		479	parm: ac97_clock int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "AC'97 codec
		480	clock (default 48000Hz)."
		481	parm: dxs_support int array (min = 1, max = 8), description "Support for
		482	DXS channels (0 = auto, 1 = enable, 2 = disable, 3 = 48k only, 4 =
		483	no VRA)
		484	</pre>
		485
		486	<p>
		487	If it has the <c>joystick</c> parameter, append <c>joystick=1</c> to your
		488	<c>options</c> line in <path>/etc/modules.d/alsa</path>. For instance:
		489	</p>
		490
		491	<pre caption="Adding the joystick parameter">
		492	alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx
		493	options snd-via82xx joystick=1
		494	</pre>
		495
		496	</body>
364	<section>	497	</section>
365	<title>More links..</title>	498	<section>
		499	<title>Resources</title>
366	<body>	500	<body>
367	<p>	501
368	You could check these for additional info:
369	</p>
370	<p>
371	<ul>	502	<ul>
372	<li><uri link="http://www.gentoo.org/doc/desktop.html">The Gentoo Linux Desktop Configuration Guide</uri></li>
373	<li><uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org">ALSA Project Homepage</uri></li>	503	<li><uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org">The ALSA Project</uri></li>
374	<li><uri link="http://www.alsa-project.org/documentation.php3">ALSA Users Documentation</uri></li>
375	<li><uri link="http://www.djcj.org">ALSA Howto's and FAQ's</uri></li>	504	<li><uri link="http://www.djcj.org">ALSA Howto's and FAQs</uri></li>
376	<li><uri link="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/index.html">Linux Sound HOWTO</uri></li>
377	<li><uri link="http://linux-sound.org/">Sound and MIDI Software For Linux</uri></li>	505	<li><uri link="http://linux-sound.org">Linux Sound/MIDI Software</uri></li>
378	</ul>	506	</ul>
379	</p>	507
380	</body>	508	</body>
381	</section>	509	</section>
382	</chapter>	510	</chapter>
383	</guide>	511	</guide>

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