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Alsa-sound-mini-HOWTO
Valentijn Sessink valentyn@alsa-project.org
v2.0-pre1, 12 November 1999
Describes the installation of the ALSA sound drivers for Linux. These
sound drivers can be used as a replacement for the regular sound
drivers, as they are fully compatible.
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Acknowledgments
1.2 Revision History
1.3 New versions of this document
1.4 Feedback
1.5 Distribution Policy
2. NOWTO - a quick install guide
2.1 Installing ALSA for kernels 2.2.x
2.2 Playing and recording sound
2.3 Installing ALSA for 2.0.x
2.4 Playing and recording sound
3. Before you start
3.1 Introduction
3.2 General information about the ALSA drivers
3.3 Supported hardware
3.4 Other HOWTO's
3.4.1 Sound cards
3.4.2 Plug and Play cards
3.4.3 Loadable modules
3.4.4 Kerneld
4. How to install ALSA sound drivers
4.1 What you need
4.2 Getting the drivers
4.3 ALSA versions
4.4 Extracting
4.5 Compiling
4.6 Preparing the devices
5. Loading the driver
5.1 Inserting with modprobe
5.2 Which module for which card?
5.2.1 Gravis UltraSound Extreme
5.2.2 Gravis UltraSound MAX
5.2.3 ESS AudioDrive
5.2.4 ESS AudioDrive 18xx
5.2.5 Gravis UltraSound PnP
5.2.6 UltraSound 32-Pro
5.2.7 Soundblaster
5.2.8 Soundblaster 16
5.2.9 OAK Mozart
5.2.10 OPTi 82C9xx
5.2.11 AD1847/48 and CS4248
5.2.12 Yamaha OPL3-SA2/SA3 soundcards
5.2.13 S3 SonicVibes
5.2.14 Ensoniq/Soundblaster PCI64
5.2.15 CS4231
5.2.16 CS4232/4232A
5.2.17 4235 and higher
5.2.18 4610/4612/4615 and 4680
5.2.19 ESS Solo 1
5.2.20 Trident 4DWave DX/NX
5.2.21 ForteMedia FM801
5.3 modprobe for drivers without auto-probing
5.3.1 OPL3-SA2 and OPL3-SA3
5.3.2 CS4231 chips
5.3.3 CS4232/CS4232A chips
5.3.4 CS4235/CS4236/CS4236B/CS4237B/CS4238B/CS4239 chips
5.4 The kerneld approach
5.5 Backwards compatibility
6. Testing and using
6.1 The /proc filesystem
6.2 The mixer
6.2.1 Mixer settings for playing
6.2.2 Mixer parts
6.2.3 Mixer settings for recording
6.2.4 Other mixer settings
6.3 The /dev/snd/ devices
6.4 Additional information
6.4.1 /proc/asound/#/pcm#0
6.4.2 /proc/asound/#card#/sb16
7. Tips and Troubleshooting
7.1 Compiling the driver
7.1.1 Linux kernel sourcetree
7.1.2 Cannot create executables
7.2 Loading the driver
7.2.1 Sound devices
7.2.2 Sound card compatibility
7.2.3 ``Device busy'' or ``unresolved symbols''
7.2.3.1 2.0 kernels
7.2.3.2 2.2 kernels
7.2.4 References to other drivers
7.2.5 Unresolved symbols revisited
7.2.6 Check the PnP setup
7.2.7 Are your parameters right ?
7.3 Driver loaded... but no (or hardly any) sound
7.3.1 Unmuting
7.3.2 Gain
7.3.3 OSS/Linux compatibility
7.3.4 Cannot open mixer
7.4 General suggestions
7.4.1 Try using ``insmod''
7.4.2 Read the INSTALL file.
7.4.3 Debug messages
7.4.4 If all else fails...
7.5 Bug reports
7.6 Tip: playing CD's
7.7 Tip: installing the MIDI serial driver
7.8 Tip: new kernel? New modules!
7.9 Tip: KDE and ALSA drivers
7.10 Tip: use the ALSA devices
7.11 Tip: removing all modules
______________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
This is the ALSA Sound drivers mini-HOWTO. It gives you information
about installing and using the ALSA sound drivers for your soundcard.
The ALSA drivers are fully modularized sound drivers that support
kerneld and kmod. They are compatible with, but surpass the
possibilities of, the current OSS API. In other words: compatible, but
better.
1.1. Acknowledgments
This documents contains information I got from the ALSA driver page.
The structure was ripped off the SB-mini-HOWTO, mainly because it had
about the structure I was looking for. Thanks to the SGML Tools
package, this HOWTO is available in several formats, all generated
from a common source file. Thanks to Erik Warmelink for proof reading,
thanks to Alfred Munnikes for a couple of questions and helpful
suggestions. Yamahata Isaku thanks for the Japanese translation,
Miodrag Vallat for the translation in French. Later on, Steve Crowder
did a great job by reading and editing the whole text. Thanks to
Cserna Zsolt for the Hungarian translation and Marco Meloni for the
Italian one. Thanks to Mohamed Ismail Mohamed-Ibrahim who sent me a
document about the Trident 4DWave DX/NX soundcard with a lot of useful
information, thanks to Gerard Haagh who sent me a lot of useful
information and who also pointed out a few unclear sections.
Thanks to Marc-Aur`ele Darche, Piotr Ingling, Juergen Kahrs, Tim
Pearce, Patrick Stoddard, Rutger de Graaf, Shuly Wintner, Jyrki
Saarela, Jonas Lofwander, Kumar Sankaran and many others for useful
tips and additions.
1.2. Revision History
Version 2.0-pre1 - November 12, 1999. Updating a couple of sections to
ALSA 0.4.1e., added various links.
Version 1.7 - July 29, 1999. A few fixes.
Version 1.6 - July 26, 1999. Added a section about ALSA-versions
Version 1.5 - May 21, 1999. Changed the mixer section, added a quick
install section
Version 1.4 - May 18, 1999. Included the URL to the French version,
changed more URLs.
Version 1.3 - May 16, 1999. Thanks to Jaroslav this HOWTO has found a
home at the ALSA-project website. As a result of that, some updates
in mail and web addresses.
Version 1.2 - May 11, 1999. Several updates.
Version 1.1 - March 11, 1999. Added a couple of sound cards from the
new 0.3 series drivers, wrote a bit about the 2.2 series kernel.
Version 1.0 - February 8, 1999. Added a few things to the
troubleshooting section, but we seem fairly complete.
Version 0.3 beta - January 20, 1999. A link on the ALSA-homepage. Ha,
we're official!
Version 0.2 alpha - Mid January 1999, first .sgml-version.
Version 0.1 alpha - January 1999, first version, mostly HTML.
Still: please submit any patches in plain English, you native
speakers!
There are a couple of additions that need to be added to the HOWTO
now. Notably, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed-Ibrahim and Gerard Haagh wrote
wonderful additions to the HOWTO, that will keep me off my regular
work for some more time. So this is 2.0-pre1 and more pre's are to
follow.
1.3. New versions of this document
The latest version can be found at http://www.alsa-
project.org./~valentyn
Other formats (full size html, sgml, txt) are in the directory other-
formats. Unfortunately, I have not succeeded in compiling a Postscript
version, as the sgml2latex-script returns a bunch of errors.
Yamahata Isaku has translated a Japanese version, which will be
available at the Japanese ALSA site,
http://plaza21.mbn.or.jp/~momokuri/alsa/index.html
Miodrag Vallat translated a French version, which is available at
http://www.freenix.fr/unix/linux/HOWTO/mini/Alsa.html.
Cserna Zsolt has translated the Hungarian version of the ALSA-HOWTO.
You can find it at http://kib4.vein.hu/~zsolt/alsa.html.
Marco Meloni did an Italian version, you can get it at
http://pluto.linux.it/ildp/index.html.
If you make a translation of this document into another language, let
me know and I'll include a reference to it here. Ook een Nederlandse
versie is welkom, ik heb zelf geen tijd om deze te schrijven. Leve de
koningin!
1.4. Feedback
I rely on you, the reader, to make this HOWTO useful. If you have any
suggestions, corrections or comments, please send them to me (alsa-
howto@alsa-project.org), and I will try to incorporate them in the
next revision.
Please note: I do not get a lot of mail about the ALSA drivers and any
addition is welcome. Even a ``thank you for'' is appreciated - maybe
it's not too much work to add a ``I appreciated most'' or ``this-or-
that was not immediately clear to me''-section.
If you publish this document on a CD-ROM or in hardcopy form, a
complimentary copy would be appreciated. Mail me for my postal
address. Also consider making a donation to the Linux Documentation
Project to help support free documentation for Linux. Contact the
Linux HOWTO co-ordinator, Tim Bynum linux-howto@metalab.unc.edu, for
more information.
1.5. Distribution Policy
Copyright 1998/1999 Valentijn Sessink
This HOWTO is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version.
This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.
You can obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License by writing to
the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139,
USA.
2. NOWTO - a quick install guide
If you want sound and you want it NOW! and not after reading this
HOWTO, this quick tour through the ALSA driver installation might be
of help. Please note: there are a couple of differences between the
ALSA versions that support 2.0 kernels and those that support 2.2
kernels.
2.1. Installing ALSA for kernels 2.2.x
You will probably want to use the ALSA 0.4.1e (or later) version if
your kernel is 2.2.x. If your kernel is older, please use 0.3.0-pre4
and see below.
Just the all time ``./configure - make - make install'' stuff. Do this
for drivers, library and utilities. You need all three because the
utilities help you to unmute your card. Kernels 2.2.x need to have
general sound support in the kernel (without choosing a specific
card).
The ALSA drivers have their own devices, you can make them usinge the
./snddevices script.
You need to load the module for your card (or use kmod) and if you
want sound to be backwards compatible with the Linux kernel sound
drivers (yes you want this) you need two other modules called snd-
pcm1-oss and snd-mixer-oss. See the section ``Which module for which
card'' to find out which module to load. After loading, you can look
in /proc/asound for various information about the ALSA drivers.
2.2. Playing and recording sound
A few remarks. ALSA has it's own devices in /dev/snd, for example
/dev/snd/pcmC0D1 is Card 0, Device 1. You can use the old /dev/pcmXY
devices if you loaded snd-pcm1-oss for backwards compatibility. You'll
also want to use /dev/mixer, so load snd-mixer-oss as well. Before you
can play any sound, you need to unmute the card with ``amixer''. Type
``amixer groups'', then try something like
amixer set PCM 100 unmute
Generally you can use options ``mute'' or ``unmute'', ``capture'' or
``nocapture'' and numbers.
That's it! Now if it works, it works. If it doesn't work, you may need
to actually read this HOWTO...
2.3. Installing ALSA for 2.0.x
The ALSA drivers versions 0.3.0, 0.3.1 and 0.3.2 have various problems
due to the restructuring of the mixer interface. Later versions do not
support kernel 2.0.x, so you definately will want to use version
0.3.0-pre4 if you have a 2.0 version kernel.
Just the all time ``./configure - make - make install'' stuff. Do this
for drivers, library and utilities. You need all three because the
utilities help you to unmute your card. Kernels 2.0.x need to have all
sound support disabled in the kernel setup
The ALSA drivers have their own devices, you can make them usinge the
./snddevices script.
You need to load the module for your card (or use kmod) and if you
want sound to be backwards compatible with the Linux kernel sound
drivers (yes you want this) you need another modules called snd-
pcm1-oss. See the section ``Which module for which card'' to find out
which module to load. After loading, you can look in /proc/asound for
various information about the ALSA drivers.
2.4. Playing and recording sound
A few remarks. ALSA has it's own devices in /dev/snd, for example
/dev/snd/pcmC0D1 is Card 0, Device 1. You can use the old /dev/pcmXY
devices if you loaded snd-pcm1-oss for backwards compatibility. Before
you can play any sound, you need to unmute the card with ``amixer''.
Type ``amixer'', then try something like
amixer pcm 100 unmute
Generally you can use options ``mute'' or ``unmute'', ``rec'' or
``norec'', numbers or left:right.
That's it! Now if it works, it works. If it doesn't work, you may need
to actually read this HOWTO...
3. Before you start
3.1. Introduction
This document tries to help you install and use the ALSA sound drivers
in your Linux system. The reference system is a Slackware 4.0
distribution of Linux on an AMD/K6 computer (x86 compatible), but it
should work with any other Linux distribution. I do not know if the
ALSA drivers work on other platforms, according to the documentation,
Alpha has been tested and proven to work. I have only x86 PC's here,
so any additional information you may have would be appreciated.
It might be handy to read the Linux Sound HOWTO (see section Other
HOWTO's), but that HOWTO focuses on the built-in kernel drivers.
3.2. General information about the ALSA drivers
The ALSA sound driver was originally written as a replacement for the
Linux kernel sound for Gravis UltraSound (GUS) cards. As this GUS
replacement proved to be a success, the author started the ALSA
project for a generic driver for several sound chips, with fully
modularized design.
It is compatible with the OSS/Free and OSS/Linux sound drivers (the
drivers in the kernel), but has its own interface that is even better
than the OSS drivers. A list of features can be found at
http://www.alsa-project.org/intro.html
Please note that the ALSA drivers are still under development. Things
may change over time, and some programs that rely on ALSA only work
under specific versions of it. Apart from that: I think they're great.
I use ALSA for 10 months now and will never go back to the dark ages
of closed source sound drivers - hint ;)
The main page of the ALSA project is http://www.alsa-project.org/
3.3. Supported hardware
The ALSA drivers support only a subset of all sound cards available.
As the time of writing, the following cards are supported.
<20> Cards with a Trident 4D Wave DX/NX chipset, thanks to Trident
Microsystems who offered ALSA ``first cut'' GPL'd drivers (MIXER
and PCM devices only) and documentation for their 4D Wave PCI audio
chipsets. See
http://www.tridentmicro.com/HTML/products%20folder/audio.htm for
more information.
Cards using this chipset include: Best Union Miss Melody 4DWave
PCI, HIS 4DWave PCI, Warpspeed ONSpeed 4DWave PCI, AzTech PCI
64-Q3D, Addonics SV 750, CHIC True Sound 4Dwave, Shark
Predator4D-PCI and Jaton SonicWave 4D.
<20> Gravis Ultrasound (GUS): ``PnP'', Extreme, Classic/ACE, MAX
<20> Cards with a GUS chipset: Dynasonic 3-D, STB Sound Rage 32,
UltraSound 32-Pro (STB), ExpertColor MED3201 and others with AMD
InterWave(TM) chip, notably some STB cards by Compaq
<20> Soundblaster: 1.0, 2.0, Pro, 16, AWE32/64, PCI64
<20> ESS AudioDrive ESx688
<20> ESS ES968 chip based cards (PnP only).
<20> ESS ES18xx (chipsets). Please note that I personally experienced a
lot of trouble with the ESS1888. The developer of the driver for
this card did his best, but to no avail.
<20> ESS Solo-1 ES1938 and ES1946. Only one of the two channels works,
which means that recording is not possible. The author of the
ES1938 code ``is aware of the problem and is currently
investigating it''.
<20> Yamaha: OPL3-SA2, OPL3-SA3 (chipsets)
<20> OAK Mozart
<20> Schubert 32 PCI (PINE, S3 SonicVibes PCI chipset)
<20> Ensoniq AudioPCI ES1370/1371 PCI soundcards (Soundblaster PCI64)
<20> SonicVibes PCI soundcards (PINE Schubert 32 PCI)
<20> ForteMedia FM801 based cards (in 0.3.2)
<20> OPTi 82C9xx chipset based soundcards
<20> AD1847, AD1848 and CS4248 chipset based cards
<20> AZT2320 chip based soundcards (PnP only).
<20> Advance Logic ALS100/ALS120 based cards
<20> C-Media CMI8330 based cards
Then a whole lot of Crystal Semiconductors-based sound boards are
supported. These chips can be found in a lot of hardware, in
separate cards (some Philips PCA series) and on motherboards (e.g.
IBM Aptiva, Dell computers). Boards based on the following chipsets
are supported:
<20> 4231
<20> 4232
<20> 4232A
<20> 4235
<20> 4236B
<20> 4237B
<20> 4238B
<20> 4239
<20> 4280
<20> 4610
<20> 4612
<20> 4614
<20> 4615
<20> 4680
The best thing is: ALSA now supports computers without a soundcard
to produce video! This is done with a dummy driver, that tricks
programs like Realplayer into thinking that there is a sound card
available.
A more recent list may be found inside the driver package itself, that
is in doc/SOUNDCARDS
3.4. Other HOWTO's
This ALSA-sound-mini-HOWTO is just mini - although it seems to grow
fast. Other HOWTO's may help you out in case this one is too terse. I
will name a few things you may come across while trying to install the
ALSA drivers. HOWTO's can generally, be found at mirrors of Metalab
(the former Sunsite). So take a look at
http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/mirrors.html and pick out your closest
mirror site. You can find HOWTO's in the directory LDP/HOWTO/. Please
note: the links in this document will all be relative to
/LDP/HOWTO/mini. If you look at this document from a reasonably good
mirror site, you will find the HOWTO's.
Then a note for the 2.2.x kernel series. For the 2.2.x kernel series,
sound support is like any other support: it works, but it is different
from what you used to do. This HOWTO (like any other HOWTO) will from
version 2.0pre1 concentrate on the 2.2 series kernel, although I'll
try to point out the differences.
3.4.1. Sound cards
Perhaps you bought a sound card already, or maybe it has been
installed in your computer for ages. And now you are going to use it!
Have a look at the Sound-HOWTO to see if this is all worth the
trouble. (You might want to buy this new Mega-Rumble-Blaster first,
then try the ALSA drivers.)
3.4.2. Plug and Play cards
Most modern sound cards for the Intel platform are ISA PnP cards,
which is an abbreviation for ''Plug and Play''. This means, that the
card has to be configured by the operation system. This has to be done
through an initialization routine at boot time. You probably need to
configure your card with the PnP-utils-package. Every recent Linux
distribution includes these tools. For usage have a look at the Plug-
and-Play-HOWTO
The ALSA-drivers seem to have built in their own ISA-PnP-support for a
couple of sound cards. Unfortunately, as I cannot find documentation
about this, I cannot tell you how it works. If anyone out there wants
to try ALSA sound support while deliberately not using the ISA-PnP-
tools, please drop me a line.
3.4.3. Loadable modules
The ALSA sound drivers are built as modules. You can find more
information about modules in the Kernel-HOWTO. There is also a
module-HOWTO, but that is unmaintained at the moment; take a look at
the umaintained section of the Howto-HOWTO. There is a Modules-mini-
HOWTO though that may be useful.
3.4.4. Kerneld
Another HOWTO that will be useful for some, is the Kerneld-mini-HOWTO.
Kerneld is a daemon that installs and removes kernel modules as
needed. (I have zero experience with it, so additional information on
the topic is welcome. The ALSA driver documentation contains some
information about configuration of the kerneld, this has been included
in this mini-HOWTO.)
As the kernel module loader is included in kernel 2.2.x, things have
changed. But as I am one of those guys that rather modprobes something
than have some daemon handle it, I have no info on this.
4. How to install ALSA sound drivers
4.1. What you need
<20> a functional Linux system (e.g. the Slackware distribution), with
the "Development" packages installed (i.e. gcc, make etc.)
<20> some knowledge about Linux (meaning you know how to use "ls", "cd",
"tar" etc.)
<20> a root-account
The great thing is: you don't need a supported sound card anymore,
as ALSA now has a dummy driver that does nothing! (No, it really
does nothing, but some programs will work now that they believe
there is a sound card available).
If you have a PnP card, you will also need:
<20> the isapnptools software package.
The INSTALL text in the driver directory suggests that for some
cards, PnP support is native. I also received a suggestion from
Jaroslav about this. When I get further information about this
topic I will add it to this mini-HOWTO.
Please note that you should not have any sound drivers active when you
want to use the ALSA drivers. If you have a kernel with sound drivers
compiled in, you'll need a kernel recompilation. If you have the old
"sound.o" module active, you need to deactivate it. If you use
kerneld, this probably means deleting sound.o from the
/lib/modules/<kernel_version>/misc directory. Newer RedHat systems
have a different sound approach, with several sound modules active.
You need to deactivate them all.
The 2.2 series kernel has a new approach to sound. You should include
sound support here ! Yep, that's right: you add sound support to the
kernel, but do not include any sound card. Then compile and install
the kernel and after that, compile the ALSA-drivers.
4.2. Getting the drivers
The ALSA drivers are available from ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/
and there are mirrors at
<20> US: ftp://ftp.silug.org/pub/alsa
<20> US: ftp://ftp.eecs.umich.edu/pub/linux/alsa
<20> Netherlands: ftp://linux.a2000.nl/alsa
<20> Poland: ftp://ftp.task.gda.pl/pub/linux/misc/alsa
<20> Germany: ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/alsa
<20> Slovakia: ftp://ftp.phacka.sk/pub/alsa
<20> Australia: ftp://ftp.suburbia.com.au/pub/alsa
For a fully functional ALSA-installation, you will need the driver,
the libs and the utilities; e.g if you chose the A2000 mirror you
would get ftp://linux.a2000.nl/alsa/driver/alsa-driver-0.4.1e.tar.gz,
ftp://linux.a2000.nl/alsa/lib/alsa-lib-0.4.1d.tar.gz and
ftp://linux.a2000.nl/alsa/utils/alsa-utils-0.4.1.tar.gz
4.3. ALSA versions
The ALSA drivers have come a long way. Development started during the
2.0 version kernel, then the 2.2 series showed up (with their own
sound kernel).
As the 0.4 versions work perfectly for me, I think it is safe to use
0.4.1e (or newer, if you want). If you have a 2.0.x kernel, you will
definately not want to use 0.3.0 or later. Instead, use alsa-
driver-0.3.0-pre4, alsa-lib-0.3.0-pre4 and alsa-utils-0.3.0-pre3.
The older versions, 0.2.0-pre10p3 and older do work under 2.0.x, but I
cannot get them to work under 2.2.x (probably due to the lack of
interfacing with the soundcore module of the kernel).
4.4. Extracting
You extract the drivers by some reasonable command, like the all-time
tar -zxf <file>. Most likely you would do that in the /usr/src
directory, so you need root priviliges for this. Type ``su'' and then
the root password to become root. But please note: it is unwise to use
your system as the ``root'' user if it is not necessary. So:
cd /usr/src
tar -zxf ~/alsa-driver-0.4.1e.tar.gz
tar -zxf ~/alsa-lib-0.4.1d.tar.gz
tar -zxf ~/alsa-utils-0.4.1.tar.gz
Also working and more fun: find ~ -name alsa* -exec tar -zxf {} \;
(Don't try this at home kids, it's just an example). Note that when
downloading the drivers with Netscape, you may accidentally get
unpacked drivers with a ".tgz" extension. If tar complains about the
file format, you may get better results by leaving off the "z" in the
tar options.
4.5. Compiling
You need the drivers before you can compile and use the libs. You need
the libs before you can compile or use the utils. So let's begin:
cd alsa-driver-0.4.1e
(and for those not so experienced: try typing a <tab> (the "tab"-key)
after "alsa-d". That's called command line completion.)
./configure
If you want to use the built-in PnP interfacing, you should use
./configure --with-isapnp=yes
make
Now you need to be 'root' to install the stuff (you probably were
"root" already)
make install
If this tells you that something like ``version.h'' cannot be found,
then you probably do not have a proper kernel source tree. You need a
couple of files of your kernel source to be able to compile the ALSA-
drivers. Unpack your favorite linux-2.x.y.tar.gz in /usr/src, and
issue a make menuconfig. (Actually, make symlinks may be enough). Now
compile the libraries:
cd ../alsa-lib-0.4.1d
./configure
make
make install
OK, you're getting it, the utilities:
cd ../alsa-utils-0.4.1
./configure
make
make install
Note: you can leave out the "make install" for the utilities at first.
You could even leave out the whole library-making and utility-making,
just to check if the driver works.
4.6. Preparing the devices
There is a script in the driver-directory that will install the ALSA-
sound-devices in your /dev directory. Type
./snddevices
from the driver-directory. There should be a /dev/snd subdirectory now
(test if it is there. If you are not familiar with even the "ls" com<6F>
mand, please consider reading other HOWTO's first. You should have
some basic Linux knowledge to install these drivers).
Now you're ready to insert the driver, so please turn over to the next
paragraph.
5. Loading the driver
There are two ways to use the ALSA-sound-modules. I personally prefer
using the manual method, meaning that I insert the driver at startup.
The ALSA-drivers were designed as loadable/unloadable modules - for
instance they do not reset the mixer after loading - so you can easily
use the kerneld approach.
Please do read the section ``Backwards Compatibility''. You need it
to have sound support ``the old way''.
5.1. Inserting with modprobe
Note: If you have a PnP audio-card, you first need to set it to the
right (or at least some known) IO/IRQ/DMA. See the Plug-and-Play-
HOWTO. Did you configure your Plug-and-Play-soundcard? Ok, then read
on please. The main part is: do a "modprobe snd-card-<soundcard>".
This should do the trick. Please note that not all distributions do
include /sbin in your path. If you get a "bash: modprobe: command not
found", this will most likely mean that modprobe is not in your path.
Try ``/sbin/modprobe snd-card-sb16'', or try to find the modprobe
utility elsewhere.
The most important difficulty is with the Crystal chipsets, for these
the ALSA-drivers are not auto probing. More recent information may be
acquired from the INSTALL file in the driver-directory. Two examples,
then a list: Gravis UltraSound (GUS) and compatibles:
/sbin/modprobe snd-card-gusclassic
For all 16-bit Soundblaster-cards (SoundBlaster 16 (PnP), SoundBlaster
AWE 32 (PnP), SoundBlaster AWE 64 (PnP):
/sbin/modprobe snd-card-sb16
However, if you have a 0.3.0-pre4 package, the GUS Classic driver is
called ``snd-gusclassic'' and the SoundBlaster 16 module is called
``snd-sb16'' (so, without the ``card'' part).
5.2. Which module for which card?
Please note that ALSA versions before 0.4.x sometimes had different
names. You need to leave out the ``card'' part for those drivers. This
is indicated by an asterisk (*).
5.2.1. Gravis UltraSound Extreme``(*)''
modprobe snd-card-gusextreme
5.2.2. Gravis UltraSound MAX``(*)''
modprobe snd-card-gusmax
5.2.3. ESS AudioDrive``(*)''
ESS AudioDrive ES-1688 and ES-688 soundcards
modprobe snd-card-audiodrive1688
5.2.4. ESS AudioDrive 18xx``(*)''
ESS AudioDrive ES-18xx based soundcards
modprobe snd-card-audiodrive18xx
5.2.5. Gravis UltraSound PnP``(*)''
Gravis UltraSound PnP, Dynasonic 3-D/Pro, STB Sound Rage 32,
ExpertColor MED3201 and other soundcards based on AMD InterWave(TM)
chip.
modprobe snd-card-interwave
5.2.6. UltraSound 32-Pro``(*)''
UltraSound 32-Pro (soundcard from STB used by Compaq) and other
soundcards based on AMD InterWave (tm) chip with TEA6330T circuit for
extended control of bass, treble and master volume
modprobe snd-card-interwave-stb
5.2.7. Soundblaster``(*)''
8-bit Soundblaster cards (SoundBlaster 1.0, SoundBlaster 2.0,
SoundBlaster Pro)
modprobe snd-card-sb8
5.2.8. Soundblaster 16``(*)''
16-bit SoundBlaster cards (SoundBlaster 16 (PnP), SoundBlaster AWE 32
(PnP), SoundBlaster AWE 64 (PnP). Please note: this module does not
support the SoundBlaster VibraX16 soundcard.
modprobe snd-card-sb16
5.2.9. OAK Mozart``(*)''
modprobe snd-mozart
5.2.10. OPTi 82C9xx``(*)''
Various sound cards that use the OPTi 82C9xx chipset, like Audio 16
Pro EPC-SOUN9301 (82C930 based), ExpertColor MED-3931 v2.0 (82C931
based), ExpertMedia Sound 16 MED-1600 (82C928 based - AD1848), Mozart
S601206-G (OPTI601 based - CS4231) and Sound Player S-928
modprobe snd-card-opti9xx
5.2.11. AD1847/48 and CS4248
modprobe snd-card-ad1848
5.2.12. Yamaha OPL3-SA2/SA3 soundcards``(*)''
Just "modprobe snd-opl3sa" will not work, this driver does not do
autoprobing. See below.
5.2.13. S3 SonicVibes``(*)''
S3 SonicVibes PCI soundcards. (PINE Schubert 32 PCI)
modprobe snd-card-sonicvibes
5.2.14. Ensoniq/Soundblaster PCI64``(*)''
Ensoniq AudioPCI ES1370/1371 PCI soundcards. (SoundBlaster PCI 64)
modprobe snd-card-audiopci
5.2.15. CS4231
Just ``modprobe snd-card-cs4231'' will not work, no auto-probing. See
below.
5.2.16. CS4232/4232A
All soundcards based on CS4232/CS4232A chips. Just "modprobe snd-
card-cs4232" will not work, no auto-probing. See below.
5.2.17. 4235 and higher
All soundcards based on CS4235/CS4236/CS4236B/CS4237B/CS4238B/CS4239
chips. Just "modprobe snd-card-cs4236" will not work, no auto-
probing. See below.
5.2.18. 4610/4612/4615 and 4680
modprobe snd-card-cs461x
5.2.19. ESS Solo 1``(*)''
ESS Solo-1, 128iPCI card (es1938, ESS-SOLO-1). Jonas Lofwander sent me
a link to a document that will help you installing this card - which
is, basically, nothing more than modprobe snd-card-esssolo1 ... but
http://dice.shopcenter.nu/alsa/ can be of help. If you have an IBM
Thinkpad 1412 you can also refer to
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Peaks/3649/1412.html, thanks to
Kumar Sankaran.
5.2.20. Trident 4DWave DX/NX``(**)''
Best Union Miss Melody 4DWave PCI, HIS 4DWave PCI, Warpspeed
ONSpeed 4DWave PCI, AzTech PCI 64-Q3D, Addonics SV 750, CHIC True
Sound 4Dwave, Shark Predator4D-PCI, Jaton SonicWave 4D.
modprobe snd-card-trident
5.2.21. ForteMedia FM801
These are PCI cards based on the FM801 chip.
modprobe snd-card-fm801
(*) For ALSA version 0.3.0-pre4, you need to leave out the ``card-''
part in most (not all!) of the drivernames. So ``snd-card-sb16''
becomes ``snd-sb16'', however, ``snd-card-cs4232'' remains ``snd-card-
cs4232'' (modprobe snd-cs4232 will do something, but it will not
produce any sound!)
(**) In older ALSA versions this driver was called ``snd-card-
trid4wave'' and ``snd-trid4wave''.
5.3. modprobe for drivers without auto-probing
If you have a non-autoprobing driver, you need to supply additional
info at startup to have the driver work. More information can be found
in the file INSTALL in the driver directory.
5.3.1. OPL3-SA2 and OPL3-SA3
According to the INSTALL file you need to supply all the information
for this driver. If you initialized the card with the isapnp-tools,
you can probably get info from the /etc/isapnp.conf file for the
following values:
snd_port - control port # for OPL3-SA chip
snd_wss_port - WSS port # for OPL3-SA chip (0x530,0xe80,0xf40,0x604)
snd_midi_port - port # for MPU-401 UART (0x300,0x330), -1 = disable
snd_fm_port - FM port # for OPL3-SA chip (0x388), -1 = disable
snd_irq - IRQ # for OPL3-SA chip (5,7,9,10)
snd_dma1 - first DMA # for Yamaha OPL3-SA chip (0,1,3)
snd_dma1_size - max first DMA size in kB (4-64kB)
snd_dma2 - second DMA # for Yamaha OPL3-SA chip (0,1,3), -1 = disable
snd_dma2_size - max second DMA size in kB (4-64kB)
You would do a "modprobe snd-card-opl3sa snd_port=0xNNN
snd_wss_port=0x530 snd_midi_port=-1 snd_fm_port=0x388 snd_irq=5
snd_dma1=0 snd_dma1_size=NN snd_dma2=1 snd_dma2_size=NN" to load this
driver (without midi-support. I am still convinced that midi-support
is the thing you need when you have synthesizers and stuff and want to
connect them to your Linux box. Never needed Midi-support even to play
midi-files.)
Note that the "NN" values need to be supplied, only I do not know what
would be reasonable values. I do not know if the dma size option is
really required.
If you happen to have an IBM Thinkpad with this chipset, then
http://www.cirs.org/patrick/index.html might be of help.
If you use the driver from 0.3.0-pre4, then leave out the ``card-''
part in the name.
5.3.2. CS4231 chips
According to the INSTALL file you need to supply the main port for
this card. Note that with the driver for 3235/6/7/8/9 cards, the one
below, I ended up supplying all information (except DMA-size),
otherwise the driver did not work. So you may as well use the whole
command line to insert the driver. If you initialized the card with
the isapnp-tools, you can probably get info from the /etc/isapnp.conf
file for the following values:
snd_port - port # for CS4232 chip (PnP setup - 0x534)
snd_mpu_port - port # for MPU-401 UART (PnP setup - 0x300), -1 = disable
snd_irq - IRQ # for CS4232 chip (5,7,9,11,12,15)
snd_mpu_irq - IRQ # for MPU-401 UART (9,11,12,15)
snd_dma1 - first DMA # for CS4232 chip (0,1,3)
snd_dma1_size - max first DMA size in kB (4-64kB)
snd_dma2 - second DMA # for Yamaha CS4232 chip (0,1,3), -1 = disable
snd_dma2_size - max second DMA size in kB (4-64kB)
You would do a "modprobe snd-card-cs4231 snd_port=0x534
snd_mpu_port=-1 snd_irq=5 snd_dma1=0 snd_dma1_size=NN snd_dma2=1
snd_dma2_size=NN" to load the driver for a "standard configured"
soundcard. (Without midi-support, see the note at Yamaha OPL-3). If
you used different values in /etc/isapnp.conf, then you would use the
values here also (Note: it can be wise to use your brains anyway ;)
Note that the "NN" values need to be supplied, only I do not know what
would be reasonable values. I do not know if the dma size option is
really required.
5.3.3. CS4232/CS4232A chips
According to the INSTALL file you need to supply the main port for
this card. Note that with the driver for 3235/6/7/8/9 cards, the one
below, I ended up supplying all information (except DMA-size),
otherwise the driver did not work. So you may as well use the whole
command line to insert the driver. If you initialized the card with
the isapnp-tools, you can probably get info from the /etc/isapnp.conf
file for the following values:
snd_port - port # for CS4232 chip (PnP setup - 0x534)
snd_cport - control port # for CS4232 chip (PnP setup - 0x120)
snd_mpu_port - port # for MPU-401 UART (PnP setup - 0x300), -1 = disable
snd_fm_port - FM port # for CS4232 chip (PnP setup - 0x388), -1 = disable
snd_jport - joystick port for CS4232 chip (PnP setup - 0x200), -1 =
disable
snd_irq - IRQ # for CS4232 chip (5,7,9,11,12,15)
snd_mpu_irq - IRQ # for MPU-401 UART (9,11,12,15)
snd_dma1 - first DMA # for CS4232 chip (0,1,3)
snd_dma1_size - max first DMA size in kB (4-64kB)
snd_dma2 - second DMA # for Yamaha CS4232 chip (0,1,3), -1 = disable
snd_dma2_size - max second DMA size in kB (4-64kB)
You would do a "modprobe snd-card-cs4232 snd_port=0x534
snd_cport=0x120 snd_mpu_port=-1 snd_fm_port=0x388 snd_jport=-1
snd_irq=5 snd_dma1=0 snd_dma1_size=NN snd_dma2=1 snd_dma2_size=NN" to
load the driver for a "standard configured" soundcard. (Without midi-
support, see the note at Yamaha OPL-3, and no joystick support). If
you used different values in /etc/isapnp.conf, then you would use the
values here also (Note: it can be wise to use your brains anyway ;)
Note that the "NN" values need to be supplied, only I do not know what
would be reasonable values. I do not know if the dma size option is
really required.
5.3.4. CS4235/CS4236/CS4236B/CS4237B/CS4238B/CS4239 chips
According to the INSTALL file you need to supply the main port and
control ports for this card. Note that with a CS4237B card, I ended up
supplying all information (except DMA-size), otherwise the driver did
not work. So you may as well use the whole command line to insert the
driver, and not only supply snd_port and snd_cport. If you initialized
the card with the isapnp-tools, you can probably get info from the
/etc/isapnp.conf file for the following values:
snd_port - port # for CS4232 chip (PnP setup - 0x534)
snd_cport - control port # for CS4232 chip (PnP setup - 0x120)
snd_mpu_port - port # for MPU-401 UART (PnP setup - 0x300), -1 = disable
snd_fm_port - FM port # for CS4232 chip (PnP setup - 0x388), -1 = disable
snd_jport - joystick port for CS4232 chip (PnP setup - 0x200), -1 = disable
snd_irq - IRQ # for CS4232 chip (5,7,9,11,12,15)
snd_mpu_irq - IRQ # for MPU-401 UART (9,11,12,15)
snd_dma1 - first DMA # for CS4232 chip (0,1,3)
snd_dma1_size - max first DMA size in kB (4-64kB)
snd_dma2 - second DMA # for Yamaha CS4232 chip (0,1,3), -1 = disable
snd_dma2_size - max second DMA size in kB (4-64kB)
You would do a "modprobe snd-card-cs4236 snd_port=0x534
snd_cport=0x120 snd_mpu_port=-1 snd_fm_port=0x388 snd_jport=-1
snd_irq=5 snd_dma1=0 snd_dma1_size=NN snd_dma2=1 snd_dma2_size=NN" to
load the driver. (Without midi-support, see the note at Yamaha OPL-3,
and no joystick support). Notes:
<20> the "NN" values need to be supplied, only I do not know what would
be reasonable values.
<20> my CS4237B works fine without explicit dma size option.
5.4. The kerneld approach
kerneld is a daemon that inserts modules on request, and unloads them
once they are not in use anymore. Since I have no experience with
kerneld, I do not know if the information below is accurate. The info
comes from the INSTALL file in the ALSA-drivers package. Excellent
information about kerneld can be found in the kerneld-mini-HOWTO.
Follow these steps:
<20> Edit your /etc/conf.modules (see below for examples)
<20> Run 'modprobe snd-card' where card is name of your card [Which I
find rather strange, since kerneld is supposed to load them? VS]
Example for /etc/conf.modules for Gravis UltraSound PnP soundcard:
alias char-major-14 snd
alias snd-minor-oss-0 snd-interwave
alias snd-minor-oss-3 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-minor-oss-4 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-minor-oss-5 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-minor-oss-12 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-card-0 snd-interwave
options snd snd_major=14 snd_cards_limit=1
options snd-interwave snd_index=1 snd_id="guspnp" snd_port=0x220 snd_irq=5
snd_dma1=5 snd_dma2=6
Example if you want use more soundcards in one machine (configuration
below is for Sound Blaster 16 and Gravis UltraSound Classic):
alias char-major-14 snd
alias snd-minor-oss-0 snd-mixer
alias snd-minor-oss-3 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-minor-oss-4 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-minor-oss-5 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-minor-oss-12 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-card-0 snd-sb16
alias snd-card-1 snd-gusclassic
options snd snd_major=14 snd_cards_limit=2
options snd-sb16 snd_index=1 snd_port=0x220 snd_irq=5 snd_dma8=1 snd_dma16=5
options snd-gusclassic snd_index=2 snd_irq=11 snd_dma1=6 snd_dma2=7
Example if two Gravis UltraSound Classic soundcards are present in
system:
alias char-major-14 snd
alias snd-minor-oss-0 snd-mixer
alias snd-minor-oss-3 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-minor-oss-4 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-minor-oss-5 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-minor-oss-12 snd-pcm1-oss
alias snd-card-0 snd-gusclassic
alias snd-card-1 snd-gusclassic
options snd snd_major=14 snd_cards_limit=2
options snd-gusclassic snd_index=1,2 snd_port=0x220,0x260 snd_irq=5,11
snd_dma1=5,6 snd_dma2=7,3
5.5. Backwards compatibility
If you want to preserve OSS/Free or OSS/Linux compatibility, you need
to insert one more driver: the snd-pcm1-oss driver for OSS-
compatibility. Issue a
modprobe snd-pcm1-oss
This will give you /dev/audio and /dev/dsp-support, just as the
OSS/Free (kernel) drivers and OSS/Linux (the $25 ones) do. Note that
this is only an emulation.
6. Testing and using
Now you should test if the sound driver really is available, then try
to use it.
6.1. The /proc filesystem
You can find a lot of useful information about your system in the
/proc subdirectory. /proc is a "virtual" filesystem, meaning that it
does not exist in real life, but merely is a mapping to various
processes and tasks in your computer. In order for /proc to work, you
need to have support for it compiled into your kernel. Most linux
distributions have this as a default, but if you compiled a kernel and
left /proc out obviously there won't be anything in /proc.
/proc/modules gives information about loaded modules. Once the ALSA
sound drivers are loaded, if you type cat /proc/modules you should see
something like:
snd-pcm1-oss 4 0
snd-sb16 1 1
snd-sb-dsp 4 [snd-sb16] 0
snd-pcm1 4 [snd-pcm1-oss snd-sb-dsp] 0
snd-pcm 3 [snd-pcm1-oss snd-sb16 snd-sb-dsp snd-pcm1] 0
snd-mixer 3 [snd-pcm1-oss snd-sb16 snd-sb-dsp] 1
snd-mpu401-uart 1 [snd-sb16] 0
snd-midi 4 [snd-sb16 snd-sb-dsp snd-mpu401-uart] 0
snd-opl3 1 [snd-sb16] 0
snd-synth 1 [snd-sb16 snd-opl3] 0
snd-timer 1 [snd-opl3] 0
snd 8 [snd-pcm1-oss snd-sb16 snd-sb-dsp snd-pcm1 snd-pcm snd-mixer snd-mpu401-uart snd-midi snd-opl3 snd-synth snd-timer] 0
If something went wrong during the installation of the driver, you
will still see a couple of "snd" devices, but there won't be sound
support.
For example (Note: you should never issue this command as follows, the
cs4236 driver needs options):
win3:~# modprobe snd-card-cs4236
/lib/modules/2.0.35/misc/snd-card-cs4236.o: init_module: Device or resource busy
snd-mixer: Device or resource busy
win3:~# cat /proc/modules
snd-cs4236 2 0
snd-cs4231 3 [snd-cs4236] 0
snd-timer 1 [snd-cs4231] 0
snd-pcm1 4 [snd-cs4236 snd-cs4231] 0
snd-mixer 3 [snd-cs4236 snd-cs4231] 0
snd-pcm 3 [snd-cs4236 snd-cs4231 snd-pcm1] 0
snd-mpu401-uart 1 0
snd-midi 4 [snd-mpu401-uart] 0
snd-opl3 1 0
snd-synth 1 [snd-opl3] 0
snd-timer 1 [snd-cs4231 snd-opl3] 0
snd 8 [snd-cs4231 snd-timer snd-pcm1 snd-mixer snd-pcm] 0
You can check the existence of a soundcard by looking in
/proc/asound/cards. For example:
bash$ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [card1 : SB16 - Sound Blaster 16
Sound Blaster 16 at 0x220, irq 5, dma 1&5
In the previous example (where I forgot the options) the output would
have been:
win3:~# cat /proc/asound/cards
--- no soundcards ---
A working CS4236 card would produce
0 [card1 ]: CS4236 - CS4237B
CS4237B at 0x534, irq 7, dma 1&0
If you checked and doublechecked your settings and still see no sound
card, take a look at the troubleshooting section.
The /proc/asound/ virtual directory shows lots of other information
about the driver. Please note that /proc/asound/ will only exist after
you inserted the first ALSA module. If there is no /proc/asound, it
simply means that the "snd" module was not loaded properly. You can
find installed cards in /proc/asound/cards, then find information
about card0 in /proc/asound/0, /proc/asound/1 for card1 etcetera.
If cat /proc/asound/card1/pcm0 shows something like
ES1370 DAC2/ADC
Playback isn't active.
Record isn't active.
this means that your driver is ready to go, but is not doing anything
right now. (So everything went well).
For users of a 2.0.x kernel there is a third method to find
information about the sound devices, namely if you inserted the OSS
compatible driver there is a /dev/sndstat device. The ALSA drivers
kindly request that you not to rely on this information as it is only
there for compatibility with the OSS drivers and better information
can easily be obtained from /proc/asound/. In kernel 2.2.x ALSA uses
the kernel soundcore and therefor cannot emulate /dev/sndstat, since
it would interfere with the OSS drivers.
6.2. The mixer
Once the drivers for your sound card have been installed and your
/proc filesystem tells you so, you can try to make a real sound. To do
this, you need to set the mixer volumes to a reasonable value. You
need the ``amixer'' from the alsa-utils package for this. First of
all, install the utility package, or at least put the "amixer" command
in some reasonable place (like /usr/local/bin).
Version 0.3.2 and later have an interface that differs from the OSS
drivers. If you type just ``amixer'' you will see the mixer elements
and their value. One of these elements could be ``Master volume'' for
example, and could look like:
Group 'Master',0
Capabilities: volume
Channels: Front-Left Front-Right
Limits: min = 0, max = 31
Front-Left: 31 [100%] [on] [---]
Front-Right: 26 [84%] [on] [---]
Unfortunately, I do not know how to set left and right volumes
independently. With amixer, you can change volumes with the ``amixer
set'' command. For example, to change the Master volume, you would
issue a
amixer set Master 15
Please note that the names of the elements can be different for
different types of sound cards. Also note that amixer is case
dependent, so ``amixer set masteR 10'' will not work. For more
information, please look in the amixer man page.
If you have a 0.3.0-pre4 ALSA, then amixer works just like normal
mixer programs. You can look at the mixer settings by typing
``amixer''. This command lists the ``mixer settings'', or as you would
normally call it, the volume settings of the various parts of the
soundcard. The output from amixer can greatly differ from card to
card. My Soundblaster 16 shows:
Master 0 % (-14.00dB) : 0 % (-14.00dB)
Bass 0 % (-14.00dB) : 0 % (-14.00dB)
Treble 0 % (-14.00dB) : 0 % (-14.00dB)
Synth 0 % (-62.00dB) : 0 % (-62.00dB)
PCM 0 % (-62.00dB) : 0 % (-62.00dB)
Line-In 0 % (-62.00dB) : 0 % (-62.00dB) Mute
MIC 0 % (-62.00dB) : 0 % (-62.00dB) Mute
CD 0 % (-62.00dB) : 0 % (-62.00dB) Mute
In-Gain 0 % (-18.00dB) : 0 % (-18.00dB)
Out-Gain 0 % (-18.00dB) : 0 % (-18.00dB)
PC Speaker 0 % (-18.00dB) : 0 % (-18.00dB)
If you only get a message like ``amixer: Specify command...'', then
you are using the ALSA 3.2 utilities. I suggest you to upgrade to
0.4.1e or later, or to go back to 0.3.0-pre4.
6.2.1. Mixer settings for playing
You have noticed the "Mute" entry for some devices. This means that
this particular device will be zeroed out, whatever volume setting you
use. Some cards (the CS4237B in the example) even mute their master
channel. So, for the CS4237B, I would have to type
amixer set "Master d" unmute
to even be able to produce any sound at all. The Soundblaster does not
have muted output, but
amixer set Master 100 unmute
would set the volume to 100% - and unmute it if it would have been
muted. You can use a number, a word like "mute" or "unmute", or both.
Type
amixer set "Master d" 100; amixer set PCM 100 unmute
to set the CS4237B card to maximum master volume and unmute PCM volume
and set it to maximum.
If you use an older version of amixer, you need to leave out the
``set'' part of the command, so you would just type
amixer "master d" 100
6.2.2. Mixer parts
The various mixer parts may confuse you if you have no knowledge of
digital sound production. The sound-HOWTO may help a bit, but a very
short introduction is here.
You will probably only need few mixer elements: one of them is the
``CD'' setting (this is analog sound of your CD player, most CD
players are connected with a 3 or 4 wire red/white/black cable).
The ``PCM'' setting is used for most applications. Programs like
mpg123, xmms, speakfreely, realplayer and most others use the PCM
channel.
``MIC'' stands for microphone, ``line-in'' is an (optional) extra
input at the back of your sound card.
The various ``gain'' parts offer extra amplification for various uses
and are pretty self-explanatory. (Like: record-gain is extra
amplification for the recording channel, which can be useful if you
use a microphone).
6.2.3. Mixer settings for recording
You would set the CD channel to record by typing
amixer set CD capture
and stop the recording setting again by typing
amixer set CD nocapture.
Note that older amixer programs use ``amixer CD rec'' and ``amixer CD
norec'' for this.
If you would like to record something from the microphone, you would
probably use
amixer set "Input Gain" 100; amixer set Mic 100 capture mute.
(Using the microphone input unmuted will produce loud high-pitched
sound if your mic picks up its own signal from the speakers again).
Most microphones have a ``gain'' setting to boost the microphone
volume; you are most likely going to need it to pick up any sound from
the microphone at all.
Again, older amixer programs use ``amixer "input gain" 100; amixer mic
100 rec mute''.
6.2.4. Other mixer settings
Unfortunately I have not been able to change the volume of the "3d
center" and "3d space" settings with amixer 0.3.0-pre4. I haven't
tried yet with 0.4.1e (this particular machine is still running
2.0.38). If anyone succeeds please let me know. I can use alsamixer
for this job, but alsamixer was not ported to the 0.4.1e version yet.
The ALSA FAQ says that it is possible to restore mixer settings with
cat <file> > /proc/asound/#/mixerC0D0, where <file> was obtained from
/proc/asound/#/mixerC0D0. I have not been able to reproduce this as my
system complains about non-existing devices. Then there is the
``alsactl'' program, which I don't use. I invite you (yes, you!) to
write this section.
6.3. The /dev/snd/ devices
The alsa drivers have native sound-devices in the /dev/snd/ directory.
If you have one card you might see the following devices:
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0 - the raw audio device for the card
/dev/snd/mixerC0D0 - the mixer for card 0
/dev/snd/controlC0D0 - the control device for card 0
The first number means the number of the soundcard, the second number
(if any) is the number of the device. A sound card with two PCM
devices would have a pcmC0D0 and pcmC0D1 device. Please note: the
ALSA devices have changed between the previous version. Older ALSA
drivers use /dev/snd/pcm00 (first number is the card, second number is
the device). If this HOWTO uses the older notation, please drop me a
line so I can correct it.
Now you are ready to put any soundfile you want into the PCM device of
the first card. So try to cat any textfile (any file) to
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0, like this: cat <filename> > /dev/snd/pcmC0D0. The
filename can be any file, as long as it has some length. If you have a
soundfile lying around somewhere, you could try that. You could also
get the file at http://www.ldp.org/sounds/english.au this is Linus
Torvalds saying how to pronounce Linux.
The default setting of your sound device is 8000 Hz, 8 bit. That means
that the "english.au" file mentioned above will produce speech, other
test files will probably just produce noise. If you do not hear
anything, check your speakers, try to run "amixer" again or consult a
doctor. (Later on you can easily use the full 48 KHz, 16 bit features
of your sound card, by using your favourite sound player like sox or
mpg123).
If you loaded the ``snd-pcm1-oss'' module, you can also use the OSS-
compatibility to access your sound card. The following mappings are
made:
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0 -> /dev/audio0 (/dev/audio) -> minor 4
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0 -> /dev/dsp0 (/dev/dsp) -> minor 3
/dev/snd/pcmC0D1 -> /dev/adsp0 (/dev/adsp) -> minor 12
/dev/snd/pcmC1D0 -> /dev/audio1 -> minor 4+16 = 20
/dev/snd/pcmC1D0 -> /dev/dsp1 -> minor 3+16 = 19
/dev/snd/pcmC1D1 -> /dev/adsp1 -> minor 12+16 = 28
/dev/snd/pcmC2D0 -> /dev/audio2 -> minor 4+32 = 36
/dev/snd/pcmC2D0 -> /dev/dsp2 -> minor 3+32 = 35
/dev/snd/pcmC2D1 -> /dev/adsp2 -> minor 12+32 = 44
You probaly want to use the ``snd-mixer-oss'' module as wel, so you
can use the backwards compatible mixer.
6.4. Additional information
The INSTALL file in the ALSA driver directory mentions some tricks to
tell the driver which settings to use. If you need these commands it
will depend on the application you use to play sound. Regular sound
playing applications, like mpg123, sox (mostly called with the
``play'' command), or X11 applications like RealPlayer will probably
do fine without these. I never used these anyway.
6.4.1. /proc/asound/#/pcm#0
"Playback erase" - erase all additional informations about OSS applications
"Playback <app_name> <fragments> <fragment_size> [<options>]"
"Record erase" - erase all additional informations about OSS applications
"Record <app_name> <fragments> <fragment_size> [<options>]"
<app_name> - name of application with (highter priority) or without
path
<fragments> - number of fragments or zero if auto
<fragment_size> - size of fragment in bytes or zero if auto
<options> - optional parameters
WR_ONLY - if application tries open pcm device with O_RDWR driver
rewrites this to O_WRONLY (playback) - good for Quake etc...
Examples:
echo "Playback x11amp 128 16384" > /proc/asound/0/pcm0o
echo "Playback squake 0 0 WR_ONLY" > /proc/asound/0/pcm0o
6.4.2. /proc/asound/#card#/sb16
"Playback 8" -> driver will use always 8-bit DMA channel for playback.
"Playback 16" -> driver will use always 16-bit DMA channel for playback.
"Playback auto" (default) -> driver will use auto mode (first opened direction will use 16-bit DMA channel).
"Record 8" -> driver will use always 8-bit DMA channel for record.
"Record 16" -> driver will use always 16-bit DMA channel for record.
"Record auto" (default) -> driver will use auto mode (first opened direction will use 16-bit DMA channel).
Example: echo "Record 16" > /proc/asound/0/sb16
For further reference, please consult the INSTALL file.
7. Tips and Troubleshooting
Please take a look at the FAQ file in the sound driver directory. This
section is still under construction.
7.1. Compiling the driver
7.1.1. Linux kernel sourcetree
If your ALSA drivers do not compile correctly and tell you things
about ``version.h'' or other header-files that cannot be found, this
can mean that you do not have the kernel header files. Take a look at
the kernel-HOWTO, unpack a recent kernel in /usr/src and issue a make
config.
7.1.2. Cannot create executables
The utils also contain code written in c++. Most of us have a c++
compiler either from gcc or egcs but make sure you also have the
libstdc++-devel package installed, else when you run the configure
script for the utils, your system will stump you with an error message
saying your ``c++ compiler cannot create executables''.
7.2. Loading the driver
Please check the following items.
7.2.1. Sound devices
ALSA uses special devices in the /dev-tree. Make sure you have run the
./snddevices script in the alsa-drivers source directory.
7.2.2. Sound card compatibility
Are you 100% sure that your sound card IS supported ? Do check it
again. Sometimes an X123 is not exactly an X123b and you might be
wasting time. On the other hand, even a supported card can give you
troubles - it took me two hours to figure out the installation of a
CS4237B which was, after all, just a fine example of RTFM.
7.2.3. ``Device busy'' or ``unresolved symbols''
You might have a 2.0.x kernel with sound support compiled in, or the
OSS/Lite (kernel) sound driver could be loaded (check with cat
/proc/modules). Remove the driver or recompile the kernel (have a look
at the Kernel-HOWTO).
The sound module in the 2.0 series kernel is called ``sound.o'' and
should not be active. (The ALSA driver ``snd.o'' is OK, though).
If you have a 2.2.x series kernel without sound driver compiled in,
the ALSA drivers will not work, too.
7.2.3.1. 2.0 kernels
I know it this is confusing, so let me try to explain it one more
time. If you have a 2.0.x series kernel (the command ``uname -a''
tells you something like ``Linux penguin 2.0.35 #6 Wed Sep 23 10:19:16
CEST 1998 i686 unknown'') then you need to leave out sound drivers in
the kernel. ALSA 0.4.x and later do not work with the 2.0 series
kernel
7.2.3.2. 2.2 kernels
If you have a 2.2.x series kernel you do need the sound drivers. A 2.2
series kernel should be compiled with sound support, but without any
sound card driver. So you select sound support but make sure that no
specific sound card driver will be compiled.
7.2.4. References to other drivers
Another reason why the driver complains that the device is busy could
be that the file /etc/conf.modules still has references to the
soundcard drivers. You should delete these and leave only the
references to the ALSA-driver. (If there are other non-sound-related
drivers there, then you can probably leave these as-is).
7.2.5. Unresolved symbols revisited
Another source of ``unresolved symbols'' messages could be a new
kernel with older drivers. Please recompile the ALSA drivers after you
recompile a new kernel. This will make sure that the drivers match
your new kernel.
7.2.6. Check the PnP setup
Are you sure that your card is active? Take another look at the PnP-
HOWTO and check if you activated your sound card correctly.
7.2.7. Are your parameters right ?
Check, doublecheck your sound card parameters. Please note: 534 is not
543, nor is 0x534 the same as 534.
Also, some sound cards must be loaded by a different name than might
be expected. Take a break, a beer or whatever, and look again at your
``modprobe'' command. For example the Crystal 4232 driver should be
inserted by modprobe snd-card-cs4232, not ``snd-cs4231'', and the
SoundBlaster PCI 64 should be loaded with ``snd-card-audiopci'', not
snd-es1370. (It's all in the docs, and even though I wrote the HOWTO,
I once spent an evening trying to persuade snd-cs4231 to make sound).
7.3. Driver loaded... but no (or hardly any) sound
7.3.1. Unmuting
The ALSA drivers can use the ``muting'' facilities that most
soundcards have. If you loaded the sound drivers and everything is
fine but you get nothing but silence, then you probably forgot to
unmute your card. You need ``amixer'' or ``alsamixer'' for this, both
from the ALSA-util package. Just typing
amixer set -c 1 Master 70 unmute
amixer set -c 1 PCM 70 unmute
amixer set -c 1 CD 70 unmute
should do for most applications. Please note that for the older amixer
command you need to leave out the ``set'' in the command line.
7.3.2. Gain
Most sound cards have a separate mixer part for extra input or output
boosting. This entry is most likely called the ``gain'', ``in-gain''
for input and ``out-gain'' for output. Setting this gain to an
appropriate level will greatly help you getting the maximum volume out
of your speakers (think about your parents/neighbours/ears though).
So a command like
amixer set out-gain 100 unmute
will probably help.
7.3.3. OSS/Linux compatibility
If this is the first time you use the ALSA drivers and you used the
built-in sound drivers before, you probably want to have backwards
compatible sound (i.e. use the /dev/pcmX devices). You need to load
the ``OSS compatibility driver'' for this. Do a modprobe snd-pcm1-oss
&& modprobe snd-mixer-oss. (See the end of the section about loading
the driver). Please note: snd-pcm1-oss is not equal to snd-pcm1, you
need snd-pcm1-oss for old-fashioned sound support and snd-mixer-oss
for (you guessed it) the mixer.
7.3.4. Cannot open mixer
If you have tried to install a couple of different ALSA versions, then
sometimes the mixer cannot be opened anymore. This happens if you have
tried 0.3.2 and want to downgrade to 0.3.0-pre4 (IIRC). You should
delete all libasound files and links from /usr/lib and then recompile
libraries and utils:
rm /usr/lib/libasound.*
Just to be safe, remove all ALSA sound drivers afterwards, then recom<6F>
pile and install and reload the drivers.
7.4. General suggestions
7.4.1. Try using ``insmod''
It can always be useful to start with "insmod" instead of kerneld.
Maybe you actually see the error on screen.
7.4.2. Read the INSTALL file.
A lot of information can be found in the INSTALL file in the drivers
directory. If your driver won't work check if there is additional
information available.
7.4.3. Debug messages
As a last resort, you can rebuild the driver and tell it to send debug
information to /var/log/messages. Go to the driver-directory with cd
/usr/src/alsa-driver-.... and type:
./configure --with-debug=detect; make clean; make
Remove the driver (as far as it is active, see below for a general
remove statement). Then use the "modprobe" statement you used before
to insert the newly compiled driver. Look in /var/log/messages if
there are any messages.
7.4.4. If all else fails...
If these messages doesn't help you, send a message to the ALSA users
mailing list, alsa-user@alsa-project.org.
Include the following information:
<20> soundcard name + chip names present on your soundcard
<20> relevant sections in your isapnp.conf if you have ISA PnP soundcard
<20> your conf.modules or line which you activate ALSA driver
<20> all messages from /var/log/messages which should be relevant to the
ALSA driver
7.5. Bug reports
If you found a bug, the ALSA developers would like to know the
following things (at minimum)
1. driver + kernel version: 'cat /proc/asound/version'
2. soundcard info
<20> soundcard name provided by manufacture
<20> list of chips which soundcard have onboard
<20> contents of 'cat /proc/asound/cards'
3. all messages from /var/log/messages which should be relevant to
ALSA driver
4. problem description
7.6. Tip: playing CD's
If you use kmod/kerneld and the ALSA drivers to play CD's, then
kmod/kerneld probably do not load the drivers as expected. This is due
to the fact that a command line CD player only tells the CD player to
start playing without using any of the devices that tell kmod/kerneld
that there is sound to occur. Using modprobe may be your only solution
to this problem.
7.7. Tip: installing the MIDI serial driver
Normally, the IO port of the serial device is owned by the standard
serial device driver. So before you can do ``modprobe snd-serial'' we
have to tell the driver to release the serial device.
Here is the procedure.
setserial /dev/ttyS0 uart none
modprobe snd-serial
(Replace /dev/ttyS0 with the appropriate /dev/ttySx device if your
MIDI device uses a different serial device).
7.8. Tip: new kernel? New modules!
After you upgrade your kernel, you probably need to recompile the ALSA
drivers. If they are still in the original /usr/src directory, then
please do not forget to issue a make clean before you do the
./configure, make, make install thing.
Oh, and then there is this anomaly in kernel numbering: a ``2.2.0ac1''
kernel that is ``not a number'' - says the configure script. I think
this was resolved in newer scripts, otherwise you should maybe change
the kernel version in the source.
7.9. Tip: KDE and ALSA drivers
Suppose you have KDE up and running but you cannot get system sounds
to work, like for opening windows, changing desktops, etc. Sound works
in general. If your cd player and mp3 player and mixer all do work,
then it's probably just "kwmsound" that's lacking.
So: make sure "kwmsound" is in your startscript ($KDEDIR/bin/startkde)
7.10. Tip: use the ALSA devices
If you had sound support in your Linux before, then your applications
will probably all point to /dev/pcm0, /dev/audio and /dev/mixer. This
is fine, if you use OSS compatibility with the snd-pcm1-oss module. It
might be better, however, to use the real ALSA devices, those found in
/dev/snd/.
7.11. Tip: removing all modules
Removing 10+ modules one by one is not the way to go. Luckily, all
modules start with the "snd-" prefix, so a little command line
programming will do. You can easily remove ALSA sound by issuing a
command like:
cat /proc/modules|gawk '/^snd-/{print $1}'|xargs -i rmmod {}
Juergen Kahrs wrote: ``I have a script that also removes soundcore and
soundlow and sound if present and if they are not in use. This script
processes /proc/modules three times so there should not be too many
modules left after processing''. His solution is
awk '/^snd/||/^sound/&&($3==0){system("rmmod " $1)}' /proc/modules /proc/modules /proc/modules
Please note: if some module is dependent on another module you cannot
just remove the "higher" one. This means that you might need to issue
a second removal statement. (I never encountered this situation
though, it seems that you can remove the ALSA modules in the order
they appear in /proc/modules).
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