Messages in this thread | | | From | Florian Schmidt <> | Subject | Re: Is it time for remove (crap) ALSA from kernel tree ? | Date | Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:30:54 +0200 |
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On Thursday 28 June 2007, Anton Petrusevich wrote: > > > I have ICE1724, a very good sound card to my taste, works like a charm. > > > But with ALSA I had a really hard time to configure it properly, wanna > > > see my .asoundrc? > > > > Not particularly. I don't count as a great fan of the config file syntax > > and don't use any configuration myself. > > Do you have an SPDIF out? If you don't then you don't need .asoundrc of > course.
With a properly coded ALSA app, one doesn't need a .asoundrc. You would enter "plug:spdif" [or something similar] into the pcm device name entry text field.
Or if you want to point all apps to that device you actually could add this to your .asoundrc:
pcm.!default { type plug slace.pcm "spdif" }
[or something similar. Too lazy to look up the exact syntax now]. And then every app using the ALSA API _correctly_ should use that device [if configured to use the default device, which should be the _default_ ;)]
Sadly it seems pretty much everyone, especially closed source apps get this wrong (but to be fair: loads of open source software gets it wrong, too, ekiga for example).
What they do wrong is that they try to present a list of devices to the user from which he can choose [which isn't bad in itself] and also do _not_ offer any way to specify an arbitrary PCM device name.
Sadly, the ALSA api docs do not stress this point often enough, so it gets missed pretty often.
I once posted an [not original, i suppose people before me got that idea, too] idea to the alsa-dev list a while back, proposing a way to be able to "register" pcm devices defined in .asoundrc/asound.conf, so that apps that want to present a list to the user can simply ask ALSA for a list of devices nd hav the user defined ones included. Sadly i don't think it ever went anywhere..
> Because I want to route it differently, sometimes to spdif, sometimes to > headphones, sometimes to mix sounds from different apps. Well, my config > may be a bit ancient as it was written when dmix was not default.
Well, like i said, the application in question should allow you to enter any pcm name you want. If it doesn't it's broken.
> I have read some advices for ice1724 already. The main reason I wrote to > lkml -- I hate .asounrc and reading docs about it. I hate "flexebility" > that requires restarting apps after changing sound routes.
I own a ice1712, too, but i only use it for JACK and it works brilliantly there. But i know it can be a bitch to configure since it sports a 10/12 channel device which can be too complicated for some ALSA apps making assumptions about the device they get ;)
> I perfectly know this one. I would like to use some really user-friendly > tool.
I don't know of any. But any text editor will do.
> > > I want to be able to hear sound from flashplayer on my reciever or in > > > my headphones -- how? > > > > Not sure? Is your receiver on an analog output and are your headphones > > My receiver is on spdif out.
The flashplayer has been another one of these badly coded apps ;) Maybe that has changed in recent releases.
> > It's not working without an .asoundrc? > > Looks like it's not working with. As skype is not so informative.
But skype is a piece of crap anyways. It also doesn't get any sounds out of my other [non ice1712] card. Neither in OSS nor in ALSA mode. Not a beep. And yeah, the device is available [and even has hardware multiplexing]..
> I am not about ice1724 or .asounrc here. I am trying to talk about > user-friendliness of ALSA. It's very unfriendly.
I agree. ALSA is not very userfriendly. Especially the missing proper device enumeration support is a problem.
But 99.9% of problems people have with ALSA are due to badly coded apps..
Regards, Flo
-- Palimm Palimm! http://tapas.affenbande.org - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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