On Thursday 30 October 2008 03:27:40 Patrick Shirkey wrote: Patrick, a .asoundrc file is neither in my /home directory nor in the /etc directory so I do not think Kmix is creating one. When I use qjackctl I look at the connections that are possible. qjackctl finds all audio devices connected to my notebook and their relevant device names and node points and displays them. They are updated whenever I restart qjackctl. It means that I can get a hw:0,0 for my external USB device but I can also get a hw:2,0 for it. qjackctl monitors that and always seems to display the latest device name/node point combination. So the answer to Your question is "I look at the device name and qjackctl knows the node point for jackd assigned to the device name". The problem is that after looking at the combination and chosing the relevant device name/node point from this menu list for the external USB audio device I am still not getting external audio output with jack when I use amarok that I have set to "jack" for audio output. This appears to be linked somehow with the Kmix menu display settings. That is, if Kmix displays the external USB device settings I am getting amarok external USB audio output, but if Kmix displays onboard sound settings then amarok uses internal onboard sound, regardless the fact that qjackctl is set to output to external USB device. I wonder if qjacktcl/jackd creates a permanent list of audio devices and their node points once and does not update this list afterwards. Whenever a device is connected jack looks into this list and takes the node point assigned to a device, regardless the fact that the node point could have changed meanwhile. Crypto.

On Thursday 30 October 2008 11:04:38 Rui Nuno Capela wrote: Ah, I have found it. It is a matter of confusion ;-) And, unfortunately, it IS a problem in qjackctl. Maybe it is a feature though ;-) I have had a look at the .jackdrc file which in my case contains a single line: /usr/bin/jackd -R -dalsa -dhw:1 -r48000 -p128 -n2 -Phw:0,0 -S -o2 -Xseq This is the line that jackd gets on startup when launched by qjackctl. It is set to -d hw:1 which means output to hw:1 (my external USB device). The tricky thing is the -P parameter. It means: -P --playback Provide playback ports. Optionally set device (default: none) It is wrongly set to hw0:0 which is the onboard sound of my notebook. Why is that? Look in qjackctl: one can select from the "Audio" menu to have duplex or "Playback only" or "Capture only". If You - as I did - select "Playback only", then the menus for "Input Device" and "Output Device" are greyed out and cannot be selected. I thought that the ONLY relevant device, that is, the device for audio output in this case, is then selected ONLY by the menu "Interface". Unfortunately, the values of the menu "Output device" is still saved in the .jackdrc file and therefore sent to jackd. So: if the "Output Device" is greyed out and/or one has not been set before to the correct output port (in my case: external USB card), then the wrong output device will be placed in the .jackrc file and sent to jackd. It is easy to circumvent this, though: -> Select "duplex" in the top menu, -> Set both "Output device" and "Input device" (just in case) to the desired ports, in my case that is external USB audio device, -> revert top menu to "Playback only" and select external USB device (again) in the "Interface" menu -> start jackd, which will save new .jackdrc file which now looks like this: /usr/bin/jackd -R -dalsa -dhw:1,0 -r48000 -p128 -n2 -Phw:1,0 -S -o2 -Xseq It contains the -P option which now outputs to hw:1,0 which is external USB audio correctly. Suggestion for improvement: Leave out the "Interface" menu on top and switch interfaces only by "Input Device" and "Output Device". Grey out (make unselectable) the Device which is not relevant, i.e. if chosing "Capture Only" grey out "Output Device", but make sure that the output device is not placed in the jackdrc file. And vice versa. It seems to me like the three interface menus are treated differently. Maybe there was a good reason to include the -P option in the jackdrc-file? Regards, Crypto.

On Thursday 30 October 2008 16:09:42 Rui Nuno Capela wrote: That is my favourite way of running jackd which I use normally. From my point of understanding qjackctl is creating a command line for jackd and passes the command line to it when it runs jackd (at least that is the option I use). I deleted the .jackdrc file many times to see when it is being rewritten and what is written into it at all. That was the only way to find out which parameters jackd was using. The file is written as soon as jackd starts after hitting the "start" button from within qjackctl. The line that is written into .jackdrc seems to be the full command line that is passed to jackd at its startup. This line must have been created somewhere and somehow, and I guess only qjackctl can have created that command line for jackd ;-) I can make qjackctl create a "wrong" command line for jackd which led me to my former postings describing the hassle with Kmix (which, I apologize, does not have anything to do with the symptoms I have regarded). I can make qjackctl create the "right" command line for jackd that does exactly what I need and was all I was after. For me it was the concept of the buttons and menus inside of qjackctl that misled me in how to get the "right" command line for jackd. If one deselects an option and the option becomes greyed out, I thought that then it would have no influence on the result. But that is not the case - one has to change all settings (be it for "capture" or for "playback") and chose some setting that makes sense. If I do not do that, I am getting the "wrong" command line for jackd again. Again, look at these two command lines created with qjackctl which could be found immediately in the .jackdrc file after hitting the "start" button in qjackctl: ("wrong" one) /usr/bin/jackd -R -dalsa -dhw:1,0 -r48000 -p128 -n2 -Phw:0,0 -S -o2 -Xseq ("right" one) /usr/bin/jackd -R -dalsa -dhw:1,0 -r48000 -p128 -n2 -Phw:1,0 -S -o2 -Xseq You can see that they are identical until it comes to the -P option. In the "wrong" command line the -P parameter was set to hw:0,0 because it was in the "playback only" menu which was greyed out and therefore not accessible. But I guessed that from the "interface" menu I would only have to select my external USB audio device (it is chosen as can be seen from the -dhw:1,0 parameter). Nevertheless, the false value from the greyed out "playback" device was passed on to jackd as -Phw:0,0 which resulted in jackd playing via internal onboard sound. In the second ("right" one) You can see that -P is now set to hw:1,0 which is correct for the external USB audio. I got that line when setting the "interface" menu to "duplex" and then setting the "playback" device to hw:1,0 and then greying it out by setting "interface" to "playback only". I have thought until then that the greyed out value would not appear in the command line passed on to jackd, but as You can see it was in the command line as the -P option. The -P parameter is optional, as far as I understand, so I wonder why it was added to the command line at all. If You like, I can describe exactly what I did, step by step, to show precisely what went wrong and where. Until I have fully understood the concept behind everything there is no need for me to blame anyone or any software for anything ;-) I am not using ardour2 at the moment, so I cannot say anything about that ;-) Don't worry, if I did not like qjackctl I would not use it ;-) Kind regards, Crypto.

On Thursday 30 October 2008 17:04:27 Edgar Aichinger wrote: Yes, it works here, too. -P value is omitted. Thanks a lot for this hint. Crypto.

On Thursday 30 October 2008 17:35:07 Rui Nuno Capela wrote: Yes of course - version is 0.3.2. Sounds like You are already thinking about improvements ;-) Crypto.

On Thursday 30 October 2008 05:41:34 Crypto wrote: Do you perhaps have two copies of jack running? grep for jack in a ps output. all the best, drew