28 Apr
2015
28 Apr
'15
7:17 p.m.
Hi there,
I didn't have access to the LA-lists for a number of months now, and the
list admin was not helpful. I subscribed with this crappy mail provider
now and hope that it will work. Sorry for advertisement and other crap
that might go along with it.
I do have some trouble setting up alsa the way I want it.
The machine is a laptop that I carry around and use at home.
What I want to have:
1) If on the road, the internal card (PCH) should be the default.
2) If at home, the usb card (UA25) should be the default.
I had this working rather reliably at some point, but it doesn't work
anymore.
I have the following in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf to prevent race
conditions on boot:
options snd slots=snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_intel
options snd_usb_audio index=0
options snd_hda_intel index=1
However, I experience weird things with /etc/asound.conf, it gets
overwritten on every boot with garbage.
This is what it looks like when I boot without external interface:
defaults.ctl.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
When the external interface is plugged in on boot, it looks somewhat
like this (off the top of my head):
defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.ctl.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
Obviously total garbage, and I have no idea what service tries to be
smart here. Any ideas? At least ~/.asoundrc does not get overwritten.
Also, is there a reliable way to do what I want?
Right now I have this in my ~/.asoundrc, but it does not do what I
want. I suspected that alsa would set the only device actually there as
default, but it does not, so with this setup I have no sound on the
road:
defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0
Thanks in advance for your help.
Regards,
hollunder
28 Apr
28 Apr
8:56 p.m.
On Tue, April 28, 2015 12:16 pm, hollundertee(a)gmx.net wrote:
I do have some trouble setting up alsa the way I want
it.
The machine is a laptop that I carry around and use at home.
What I want to have:
1) If on the road, the internal card (PCH) should be the default.
2) If at home, the usb card (UA25) should be the default.
What distribution? Any reason you particularly want this handled at the
ALSA layer? This seems like the kind of situation that Pulse was intended
to handle.
In fact I have a similar setup where Pulse defaults to my m-audio PCI card
if the USB interface is not connected, if the USB interface is connected
it becomes the default audio interface, and if I start jack then pulse
connects to jack instead of directly to the ALSA interface. I start jack
with qjackctl so I decide on startup which interface I want jack to use.
--
Chris Caudle
9:32 p.m.
Am 28.04.2015 um 20:55 schrieb Chris Caudle:
[...], and if I start jack then pulse
connects to jack instead of directly to the ALSA interface.
A way to that, which has been working very well on my system for the
past few years is described here in the Arch wiki:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Examples#The_new_way
(I have decreased the sleep time in the 'pulse-jack-pre-stop.sh' script
to 1 second, and it still works).
The only problem is that often Pulse clients, which are already running
when Jack starts and the Pulse redirection happens (e.g. video players
in the browser or similar), still output to the Pulse sink of the audio
interface (and are therefor silent). I then have to use pavucontrol or a
similar tool to switch their output to the Pule jack sink.
Chris
11:46 p.m.
On Tue, 28 Apr 2015, Christopher Arndt wrote:
(I have decreased the sleep time in the
'pulse-jack-pre-stop.sh' script
to 1 second, and it still works).
The only problem is that often Pulse clients, which are already running
when Jack starts and the Pulse redirection happens (e.g. video players
in the browser or similar), still output to the Pulse sink of the audio
interface (and are therefor silent). I then have to use pavucontrol or a
similar tool to switch their output to the Pule jack sink.
Just to be clear:
if exists USB use USB
else use internal
Is that about it?
Some questions:
Will the USB AI be plugged in while the system is running? Or before boot?
Will you be starting and stopping Jack, or like it to be running from
login till logout?
Personally, I run jackdbus from login till logout and have the AIs (audio
cards) in pulse configuration turn off. This way jacksink is the only
available sink and pulse will use it. I use pactl to unload the PA-jack
bridge if I want to get pulse out of the way. This sends desktop/audio to
the dummy sink so the app doesn't hang. In a script that starts jack using
jack_control to start jack, it should be easy to test for the USB AI by
name. Jack_control is compatible with both qjackctl and pulse's
module-jackdbus-detect.
I have even set jack up as the audio backend on machines (my wife's in
fact) that are normally used for desktop use. I have found this to be a
stable setup.
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net
11:53 p.m.
Am 28.04.2015 um 23:45 schrieb Len Ovens:
Just to be clear:
if exists USB use USB
else use internal
Is that about it?
You are quoting part of my message but you seem to be replying to the
OP. So I'm not sure what to answer. My message was only about switching
Pulseaudio in/out to jack, when jack starts. If you have jack running
all the time, obviously things are different.
Chri
29 Apr
29 Apr
1:46 a.m.
On Tue, 28 Apr 2015, Christopher Arndt wrote:
You are quoting part of my message but you seem to be
replying to the
OP. So I'm not sure what to answer. My message was only about switching
Pulseaudio in/out to jack, when jack starts. If you have jack running
all the time, obviously things are different.
Bad email technique on my part. Sorry, yes it was for the OP.
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net
9:48 a.m.
On 29/04/15 04:45, Len Ovens wrote:
I use pactl to unload the PA-jack bridge if I want to
get pulse out of
the way. This sends desktop/audio to the dummy sink so the app doesn't
hang
Not pavucontrol? Which I found I had to change a setting in whenever I
start Jack to get PA to connect to the Jack Sinc at all on this install
of US14.04 (but swear I didn't previously, actually seemed to work just
now as...) I don't believe you mean pavucontrol but I can see no package
called pactl on Ubuntu Studio...
Dale.
3:03 p.m.
On Wed, 29 Apr 2015, Dale Kazakore Powell wrote:
On 29/04/15 04:45, Len Ovens wrote:
pactl is a cl tool that is a part of the pulseaudio package.
examples:
pactl unload-module module-udev-detect
This will keep PA from detecting new audio IFs such as USB devices
pactl unload-module module-alsa-card
this one will keep PA from seeing any alsa device
Now PA has no choice but to see jacksink/source as default.
Now I am tracking and I want to only monitor ardour
pactl unload-module module-jackdbus-detect
will (so long as I am using jackdbus and not jackd) remove all desktop
noise without stalling any of the desktop apps because PA will create a
dummy output.
now I am finished recording and someone wants to show me a youtube vid
pactl load-module module-jackdbus-detect
and my desktop sound now works again.
http://www.ovenwerks.net/software/index.html shows the tool I use for
(un)loading jacksink/source and some other things. I am not ready to
release it yet as I wrote it for upstart which while still around....
14.04 uses it... is on it's way out the door. I need to systemdize the
commands to shut off unwanted services for low latency work.
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net
I use pactl to unload the PA-jack bridge if I
want to get pulse out of the
way. This sends desktop/audio to the dummy sink so the app doesn't hang
Not pavucontrol? Which I found I had to change a setting in whenever I start
Jack to get PA to connect to the Jack Sinc at all on this install of US14.04
(but swear I didn't previously, actually seemed to work just now as...) I
don't believe you mean pavucontrol but I can see no package called pactl on
Ubuntu Studio...
1:12 p.m.
Thanks for the many answers in the meantime. I reply to this one since
it is closest to what I want.
On Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:45:02 -0700 (PDT)
Len Ovens <len(a)ovenwerks.net> wrote:
Just to be clear:
if exists USB use USB
else use internal
Is that about it?
Yes, this is exactly what I want.
I have configured the internal interface so that it only outputs to the
headphone jacks, because I don't want my laptop to make any unexpected
sounds in the library, office, etc. (one reason why I don't use pulse:
it messes with the alsa mixer).
In the very rare occasion that I do need to use pulse, I also start it
manually. I have taken all kinds of measures to prevent pulse from
starting itself. This question is solely about alsa.
Some questions:
Will the USB AI be plugged in while the system is running? Or before
boot?
Both. It occasionally happens that I'm out, suspend the machine, take it
home, plug it in. It would be nice if it would use the USB interface
after resume.
Will you be starting and stopping Jack, or like it to
be
running from login till logout?
Jack is no problem, I start it manually from CLI or ardour when I need
it.
Thanks,
Philipp
2:26 p.m.
If it can be of any help, I found that using Jack for everything is much
easier than juggling with ALSA card numbering and priorities and stuff.
I have qjackctl in my ~/.xinitrc, and it's set up to start jack
automatically (with the last preset used).
When I use the USB audio interface, I simply stop jack, load the proper
preset, and start jack again.
I never thought of automating the selection, to be honest; I use different
USB devices, and selecting the right one manually is quick enough.
I have no need for Pulseaudio, I tried it for a while but it was only an
annoyance for me.
I set up ~/.asoundrc to use the jack plugin by default, so non-jack
software can be routed through Jack (Firefox, for example):
## ALSA JACK PCM PLUGIN
## http://jackaudio.org/faq/routing_alsa.html
## http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Asoundrc
pcm.jackplug {
type plug
slave { pcm "rawjack" }
hint { description "JACK Audio Connection Kit" }
}
pcm.rawjack {
type jack
playback_ports {
0 system:playback_1
1 system:playback_2
}
capture_ports {
0 system:capture_1
1 system:capture_2
}
}
pcm.!default { type plug; slave { pcm "rawjack" } }
-- Emanuele Rusconi
30 Apr
30 Apr
12:18 a.m.
On Wed, 29 Apr 2015, hollundertee(a)gmx.net wrote:
On Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:45:02 -0700 (PDT)
Len Ovens <len(a)ovenwerks.net> wrote:
OK
Just to be clear:
if exists USB use USB
else use internal
Is that about it?
Yes, this is exactly what I want. I have configured the internal interface so that it
only outputs to the
headphone jacks, because I don't want my laptop to make any unexpected
sounds in the library, office, etc. (one reason why I don't use pulse:
it messes with the alsa mixer).
OK
In the very rare occasion that I do need to use pulse,
I also start it
manually. I have taken all kinds of measures to prevent pulse from
starting itself. This question is solely about alsa.
Or to put it another way, desktop audio. The tool that does what you want
is (you probably won't like this) pulseaudio. PA is the only tool I know
that can switch an application from one output/input to another on the fly
without stopping the application streaming that audio. Learning about
Pulse enough to find a way of stopping it from playing with IF levels
seems to be the solution to the problem.
Almost any other solution would require the restarting of the application
streaming audio to pick up the new device. PA can move the stream to a new
device in mid stream. It would still take some script I think... probably
run by udev, but I am not sure as I have my system setup to never do sleep
mode... In fact my swap partitions are not big enough as they were setup
when I had less memory :)
PA does not always play with alsa volume levels. It seems to depend on the
AI itself. For example the ice1712 based cards do not have this problem.
This says to me that there is probably a profile set up for the intel HDA
cards that tells PA how to set the volume levels and changing the profile
could make it so PA was no longer able to do so.
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net
2 May
2 May
2:20 p.m.
I discovered that I sent this message only to Len instead of to the
list. Happens to me far too often...
On Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:16:24 -0700 (PDT)
Len Ovens <len(a)ovenwerks.net> wrote:
Right, I did not consider the case of switching a running application
over to the new interface. However, this is a limitation I could live
with. Do you know a solution for that?
It would be sufficient if the default interface was properly set on
boot or resume. It would probably not hurt if it was set whenever a usb
audio device gets plugged in. I'm not quite sure which mechanism allows
me to do that. ALSA alone? Udev?
In the very
rare occasion that I do need to use pulse, I also start
it manually. I have taken all kinds of measures to prevent pulse
from starting itself. This question is solely about alsa.
Or to put it another way, desktop audio. The tool that does what you
want is (you probably won't like this) pulseaudio. PA is the only
tool I know that can switch an application from one output/input to
another on the fly without stopping the application streaming that
audio. Learning about Pulse enough to find a way of stopping it from
playing with IF levels seems to be the solution to the problem.
Almost any other solution would require the restarting of the
application streaming audio to pick up the new device. PA can move
the stream to a new device in mid stream. It would still take some
script I think... probably run by udev, but I am not sure as I have
my system setup to never do sleep mode... In fact my swap partitions
are not big enough as they were setup when I had less memory :) PA does not always play with alsa volume levels. It
seems to depend
on the AI itself. For example the ice1712 based cards do not have
this problem. This says to me that there is probably a profile set up
for the intel HDA cards that tells PA how to set the volume levels
and changing the profile could make it so PA was no longer able to do
so.
I've seen it mess with the mixer too many times, including turning the
mic volume to max, turning the mic boost to max and nearly ruining my
speakers and my ears. And quite simply: if I set the mixer levels, I
expect them to stay that way.
Regards,
Philipp
2:37 p.m.
On Sat, 2 May 2015 14:20:04 +0200, hollundertee(a)gmx.net wrote:
It would be sufficient if the default interface was
properly set on
boot or resume. It would probably not hurt if it was set whenever a usb
audio device gets plugged in. I'm not quite sure which mechanism allows
me to do that. ALSA alone? Udev?
Default by default is hw:0 and you can ensure that hw:0 is always
reserved for the same device.
$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
# ALSA module ordering
options snd slots=snd_hdspm,snd_ice1712,snd_ice1712
You could add snd_usb_audio as first device, so hw:0 would be reserved
for an USB device, even if it's not connected. For me hw:0 is reserved
for a RME card and hw:1 and hw:2 are reserved for Envy24 cards, even if
I e.g. remove the Envy24 driver, an additional connected device, e.g. an
USB device, becomes hw:3 and not hw:1.
Regards,
Ralf
2:53 p.m.
On Sat, 2 May 2015 14:37:48 +0200
Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net> wrote:
On Sat, 2 May 2015 14:20:04 +0200,
hollundertee(a)gmx.net wrote:
Thanks Ralf, I already have that:
$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
options snd slots=snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_intel
options snd_usb_audio index=0
options snd_hda_intel index=1
This way, the interface index is static, the question is:
How do I get:
if USB_device_is_present then
default := UA25
else
default := PCH
The other, less important question is, what the fuck does this:
$ cat /etc/asound.conf
defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
Something overwrites asound.conf with stuff like this. The order is
pretty much random. Not sure the number of lines is constant either.
The result is that it is unpredictable which device is the default.
Luckily there is ~/.asoundrc, but I'd still like to know what the hell
is going on.
Regards,
Philipp
It would be sufficient if the default interface
was properly set on
boot or resume. It would probably not hurt if it was set whenever a
usb audio device gets plugged in. I'm not quite sure which mechanism
allows me to do that. ALSA alone? Udev?
Default by default is hw:0 and you can ensure that hw:0 is always
reserved for the same device.
$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
# ALSA module ordering
options snd slots=snd_hdspm,snd_ice1712,snd_ice1712
You could add snd_usb_audio as first device, so hw:0 would be reserved
for an USB device, even if it's not connected. For me hw:0 is reserved
for a RME card and hw:1 and hw:2 are reserved for Envy24 cards, even
if I e.g. remove the Envy24 driver, an additional connected device,
e.g. an USB device, becomes hw:3 and not hw:1.
Regards,
Ralf
3:45 p.m.
On Sat, 2 May 2015 14:53:16 +0200, hollundertee(a)gmx.net wrote:
Thanks Ralf, I already have that:
$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
options snd slots=snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_intel
options snd_usb_audio index=0
options snd_hda_intel index=1
This way, the interface index is static, the question is:
How do I get:
if USB_device_is_present then
default := UA25
else
default := PCH
An insane solution:
Perhaps write a script that at startup tests if the USB device is
available.
aplay -l | grep device_foo
then checking the exit status by
$?
it is 1 if the device is not available and 0 if the device is
available.
Provide two alsa-base.conf
1. options snd slots=snd_usb_audio
and
2. options snd slots=snd_hda_intel
make /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf a link to one or the other config.
Test if the link to the file is for the device that is available, if so
do nothing, if not link to the other config and let the script execute
shutdown -r now.
It could take the time of 1 shutdown and 2 startups and isn't good for
the HDDs, but on the quick I didn't found a way to restart alsa and
taking care of a changed /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf. To be honest, I
didn't read the alsa man pages, there might be a sane way to change the
default device.
4:41 p.m.
On Sat, 2 May 2015 14:53:16 +0200, hollundertee(a)gmx.net wrote:
Luckily there is ~/.asoundrc, but I'd still like to
know what the hell
is going on.
"# A simple script to create a particular default audio device
regardless # of what cards are loaded or in what order. It could be
used anytime or # placed in a ~/.bashrc script for a persistent setup
every login." - http://alsa.opensrc.org/Asoundrc#Default_PCM_device
So this way you get the available device as default device?
5:11 p.m.
On Sat, 2 May 2015 16:41:06 +0200
Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net> wrote:
On Sat, 2 May 2015 14:53:16 +0200,
hollundertee(a)gmx.net wrote:
Thanks Ralf,
that may work in combination with the static ID (not tested yet).
Without static ID it will fail, since it just picks the first one it
finds as default.
I think I managed to fix the udev-rule based variant. Will need to test
some more though.
Regards,
Philipp
Luckily there is ~/.asoundrc, but I'd still
like to know what the
hell is going on.
"# A simple script to create a particular default audio device
regardless # of what cards are loaded or in what order. It could be
used anytime or # placed in a ~/.bashrc script for a persistent setup
every login." - http://alsa.opensrc.org/Asoundrc#Default_PCM_device
So this way you get the available device as default device?
3 May
3 May
11:02 p.m.
On Sat, 2 May 2015 17:11:05 +0200
<hollundertee(a)gmx.net> wrote:
On Sat, 2 May 2015 16:41:06 +0200
Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net> wrote:
Well, it does not work. This is what my asound.conf looks like after
boot with usb device plugged in:
$ cat /etc/asound.conf
defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
This is what I would like to have:
defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0
These are the udev rules, any idea what's wrong with them?
$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/00-local.rules
KERNEL=="pcmC[D0-9cp]*", ACTION=="add", PROGRAM="/bin/sh -c
'K=%k; K=$${K#pcmC}; K=$${K%%D*}; echo defaults.ctl.card $$K > /etc/asound.conf;
echo defaults.pcm.card $$K >>/etc/asound.conf'"
KERNEL=="pcmC[D0-9cp]*", ACTION=="remove", PROGRAM="/bin/sh -c
'echo defaults.ctl.card 1 > /etc/asound.conf; echo defaults.pcm.card 1
>>/etc/asound.conf'"
Regards,
Philipp
On Sat, 2 May 2015 14:53:16 +0200,
hollundertee(a)gmx.net wrote:
Thanks Ralf,
that may work in combination with the static ID (not tested yet).
Without static ID it will fail, since it just picks the first one it
finds as default.
I think I managed to fix the udev-rule based variant. Will need to
test some more though.
Regards,
Philipp Luckily there is ~/.asoundrc, but I'd still
like to know what the
hell is going on.
"# A simple script to create a particular default audio device
regardless # of what cards are loaded or in what order. It could be
used anytime or # placed in a ~/.bashrc script for a persistent
setup every login." -
http://alsa.opensrc.org/Asoundrc#Default_PCM_device
So this way you get the available device as default device? 
29 Apr
29 Apr
6:55 a.m.
Am 28.04.2015 um 21:31 schrieb Christopher Arndt:
Am 28.04.2015 um 20:55 schrieb Chris Caudle:
I use as well a script to handle pulse and jack. As well I notice the
un-clean behave of the pulse-sink when switched while a client is
running. I noticed that switch the module-jack-source twice with a
timeout between, makes it work stable.
As well I save my used Default sink before switch to jack, and reuse it
when I switch jack of.
This works for me absolute stable. Additional option in the script is,
to suspend pulse if you would run a session without pulse enabled.
Introduction to the script is here:
http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=13234
the script is here:
https://github.com/brummer10/pajackconnect/blob/master/pajackconnect
regards
hermann
[...], and if I start jack then pulse
connects to jack instead of directly to the ALSA interface.
A way to that, which
has been working very well on my system for the
past few years is described here in the Arch wiki:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Examples#The_new_way
(I have decreased the sleep time in the 'pulse-jack-pre-stop.sh' script
to 1 second, and it still works).
The only problem is that often Pulse clients, which are already running
when Jack starts and the Pulse redirection happens (e.g. video players
in the browser or similar), still output to the Pulse sink of the audio
interface (and are therefor silent). I then have to use pavucontrol or a
similar tool to switch their output to the Pule jack sink.
Chris
3497
days inactive
3502
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
18 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
Chris Caudle -
Christopher Arndt -
Dale Kazakore Powell -
Emanuele Rusconi -
Hermann Meyer -
hollundertee＠gmx.net -
Len Ovens -
Ralf Mardorf