[linux-audio-dev] question re: hammerfall cards

[Paul Davis]

>a) It looks like the Hammerfall driver doesn't have a mixer interface, is 
>this correct ?

the hardware has no mixer.

>b) It looks like the onboard audio chip is controlled by an OSS driver, it 
>doesn't show up in the alsa drivers either, which is fine by me, since I'm 
>not going to use it.  Is there any problem with OSS modules being loaded 
>at the same time as ALSA modules ?

shouldn't be a problem.

>c) I bought the card so I could record optical S/PDIF.  The manual says I 
>need to tell the card that I want the ADAT1 Input source to be Optical 
>S/PDIF.
   [ ... ]

>Which I read as the Input source being ADAT optical instead of S/PDIF.
>How do I set it to S/PDIF ?

there are a couple of ways. alsactl is probably the most obvious:

      % alsactl -f foo store
      ... edit "foo" ...
      % alsactl -f foo restore

in the file "foo" generated by the first step, you will find lots of
stuff, including this:

	control.5 {
		comment.access 'read write'
		comment.type ENUMERATED
		comment.item.0 ADAT1
		comment.item.1 Coaxial
		comment.item.2 Internal
		iface PCM
		name 'IEC958 Input Connector'
		value Coaxial
	}
	control.6 {
		comment.access 'read write'
		comment.type BOOLEAN
		iface PCM
		name 'IEC958 Output also on ADAT1'
		value false
	}



You will want yours to look like this:

	control.5 {
		comment.access 'read write'
		comment.type ENUMERATED
		comment.item.0 ADAT1
		comment.item.1 Coaxial
		comment.item.2 Internal
		iface PCM
		name 'IEC958 Input Connector'
		value ADAT1
	}
	control.6 {
		comment.access 'read write'
		comment.type BOOLEAN
		iface PCM
		name 'IEC958 Output also on ADAT1'
		value true
	}

which will then do S/PDIF I/O over the ADAT1 connector. 

using amixer is quicker but terser and you have to know/understand a
bit more to use it confidently.

>d) the card came with a sub-D-connector that connects to the card's 15 pin 
>port, which branches off two RCA jacks.  I don't suppose these RCA jacks 
>provide an analogue output by any chance on which I can monitor for sound 
>?

no, they are for co-axial S/PDIF output. there is no analog I/O of any
kind on this card.

--p (hammerfall driver author and happy owner of 4 of them :)