First the vitals: The computer system is a 400 MHz K6-2 with 512 MB memory, and a Hercules Fortissimo II (Cirrus Logic Soundfusion CS4624 processor) sound card. The OS is Linux-2.4.20 (built up from Slackware-8.0, with kernel patches and package upgrades). I have the following ALSA components installed: alsa-driver-0.9.0rc7, alsa-oss-0.9.0rc1, alsa-utils-0.9.0rc7, alsa-lib-0.9.0rc7, alsa-tools-0.9.0rc7. The kernel is mostly monolithic, with the following options (abridged to include only those I know are relevant; if folks want the complete listing, I can easily provide it): CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL=y CONFIG_MODULES=y CONFIG_MODVERSIONS=y CONFIG_KMOD=y CONFIG_LOLAT=y CONFIG_LOLAT_SYSCTL=y CONFIG_RTC=y CONFIG_SOUND=y ALSA is the only component that I have modularized (only because I don't have the impression it can easily be just built-in, actually), and the following modules are loaded: Module Size Used by snd-mixer-oss 11120 1 (autoclean) snd-cs46xx 58096 1 (autoclean) snd-pcm 50752 0 (autoclean) [snd-cs46xx] snd-timer 9392 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm] snd-ac97-codec 26912 0 (autoclean) [snd-cs46xx] snd-rawmidi 11808 0 (autoclean) [snd-cs46xx] snd-seq-device 3824 0 (autoclean) [snd-rawmidi] snd 27280 0 (autoclean) [snd-mixer-oss snd-cs46xx snd-pcm snd-timer snd-ac97-codec snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device] I've been using Linux with OSS and a Media-Vision Pro-Audio-Studio-16 soundcard for years, and have basically had very little trouble with that combination. Upgrading to Linux-2.4.x caused the sound output to be rather noisy, so I recently took advantage of the situation to buy a new soundcard, and upgrade to using ALSA (which I've been wanting to do so I can investigate certain rather exciting applications such as Ardour and the new Rosegarden). The applications I've been using for years with OSS, (notably Dap, Mixviews, Aumix, and a few others) all appear to mostly be working fine, presumably through the ALSA OSS emulation. Aumixer now shows some lables (PhoneIn and Video) which don't correspond to any inputs I have on my soundcard, while some others (IGain and Line1) don't appear to have any use, given the way I'm currently using the card (signal from a hardware mixer going to the Line input, and signal from the main, front line output going back to the mixer). I can play back sound files without any problem. In fact I've also tried a few new (to me) applications, such as Audacity, ProTux, and (though I'm having problems with it I won't cover here) Ardour, and they too play back sounds quite nicely (the sound is "grainy", though, perhaps I need to investigate the Low-Latency issues more, or increase the size of some buffer somewhere). I can send sound to the computer, and listen to that sound coming back from the computer (adjusting the level with the "line" level in Aumix, for example), but if I try to record that sound (in any of the applications I've tried, including all those listed above), with "record enable" selected in Aumix, I get no audio recorded (silent sound file). Also, I find it interesting to note that I can record-enable only one input source at a time (contrary to my old Media-Vision card). I'm assuming that's a function of the hardware, though and can't be fixed in software? Finally, we get to my questions: - Can someone point me in the right direction(s) to find a solution to this, so I can record audio (preferably from numerous sources) into my computer? I'll be perfectly happy with pointers to documentation (though I expect to get at least some to documentation I've already read, because I think I've repeatedly gone through all the documentation I already found myself), and suggestions to upgrade certain components. - I've tried to start Jackd at system boot, with the following command added to my rc.local file: /local/bin/jackd -d alsa -d cs46xx -p 512 & Jackd fails to start at that point (I'm afraid I haven't noted the exact error message, but I can make a point of doing so next time I reboot the system), but it does start when run manually from a root shell. Does anyone have any idea why jackd might not start at boot time, (perhaps the ALSA modules aren't loaded yet at that time)? If I understand my boot sequence properly, kernel modules are setup (via "depmod -a") before rc.local is run, so the modules may not be loaded, but they should by that point be loadable (they load automatically by the kernel in regular use). - Is it possible to build ALSA into the kernel? - on a slightly unrelated point, my new soundcard has a built-in synthesizer with at least some features I'd like to explore. Though I know this won't replace any of my hardware synths (or some of the software synths I've begun to play with), I'd like to play around with some of its built-in sounds, and probably use it (at least until I get something better) as my "preset playback" device, controlled from an external MIDI controller. Does anyone have suggestions for how I might go about that? (again, simple pointers to existing documentation would be more than appreciated). In case people are wondering about my specific intended application, I'd like to use a Roland Octapad to trigger percussion sounds from the soundcard's built-in synth. Thanks in advance for any pointers people can provide.... -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sylvain Robitaille syl(a)alcor.concordia.ca Major in Electroacoustic Studies Concordia University Faculty of Fine Arts / Music Department Montreal, Quebec, Canada ----------------------------------------------------------------------