[mythtv-users] Grrrr,
I can't figure out if I hate alsa or Creative!!!
Jonathon.Schmidt at sasktel.sk.ca
Jonathon.Schmidt at sasktel.sk.ca
Thu Nov 13 09:29:20 EST 2003
Finally someone who knows my pain!
I too have had my fair share of problems with ALSA sound drivers. I
initially had a SB Live card (which under normal circumstances is a great
sound card) but I must have spent the better half of a week trying to get
rid of the modprobe errors I was receiving. To no evail I might add.
However, I did have an old esoniq audio pci-97 laying around. This card
was auto configed after a restart, and worked with my RH9 OSS drivers.
Then I reconfigured to use alsa drives by:
./configure - -with-cards-XXXX - -with-sequencer=yes where XXXX was
ens1371
make
make install
The trick to this was that the driver name is slightly different for alsa
than it was for oss. My oss driver name was es1371.
You can find your alsa driver name to fit your snd card from alsa-driver
0.9.X/alsa-kernel/documentation/alsa-configuration.txt
it has a list of modules and which cards use them.
Anyhow, this worked and I was on my way to new troubles.
As far as OS's to work with, I use RH9 and it seems to be fine. Just make
sure to use KDE environment.
Jon
"William H. Gilmore"
<whgi at gms-online.com To: <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
> cc:
Sent by: Subject: [mythtv-users] Grrrr, I can't figure out if I hate alsa or Creative!!!
mythtv-users-bounces
@mythtv.org
11/12/2003 05:13 PM
Please respond to
Discussion about
mythtv
If I have learned nothing else, I have learned that the folks who said
audio was the toughest part of MythTV know what they are talking about.
I am a 6+ year veteran of Linux with another ˝ dozen years of experience
with UNIX prior to that. So I ain't no rookie! (though I am a MythTV
rookieJ) Trying to get sound cards working in my machine with alsa has
been a real pain. This note is meant to offer up what I have found as well
as to help me vent. So be warned before you read further.
What I have learned:
1. The onboard VIA8233 audio on my Athlon XP 2200 MBO possesses a high
pitch whine when watching certain channels with MythTV. I posted an
earlier note on this and received two responses that corroborated
this observation.
2. So I exercised humility and asked for recommendations for sound
cards. Jason was nice enough to offer the Creative Audigy as a good
middle of the road card. So, I ran out to Micro Centre and bought an
Audigy LS. BAD MOVE!!!! This card's PCI ID (1102:0007) is not in
the Linux PCI DB on SF. I received a whole slew of errors when I
tried to insert the kernel module. I scanned the source code thinking
that I would hack it in, but decided that I just wasn't man enough
for the job.
3. So I decided to back down the quality curve a little and swapped the
SB Live! (rev 7) card from my production desktop and put it in the
MythTV box thinking that a card 3 years old would be a cakewalk!
WRONG AGAIN!!!! Same errors as in debacle 2! While the PCI ID on
this card is as documented on SF (1102:0002), the sub-device number
(8032) wasn't. So, I was foiled again!!!
4. But being the glutton for punishment that I am, I remembered that I
had an Ensoniq Audio PCI 3000 (ES1370 chip) in the basement. So, I
dug it out and slapped it in. Voila!!!! The Red Hat Hardware
Detection God Kudzu recognized the card!!!! And you know what, I can
play wave files thought it. And you know what, I can hear the audio
from xawtv thought it. And you know what else, the DSP interface
doesn't wwwooorrrrkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!! Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh. What am I,
a geek version of Rodney Dangerfield!!
5. I then got down on my knees, called Uncle, pulled out my AMEX card,
and ordered Jason's top of the line recommendation, an M-Audio
Revolution 7.1 from Nutrend. It should arrive early next week! In
the mean time, its back to the VIA 8233 which does work. The whine
doesn't both me now because my whine is louder!!!!
What is the moral of the story? I don't know!!! Buy a Macintosh? Just
joking at least I didn't say Window$
On a more serious note, while the alsa project has made substantial
headway, its quality is not what I have come to expect from other Open
Source projects. At least three different people had reported my problem
with the Audigy LS to the project, but there was no response. I think this
is extremely unfortunate, because the minimal fix is likely simple (add the
PCI ID to the code), but the lack of documentation in the driver and the
complexity of the driver architecture makes it difficult for passing do
gooders like me to help.
On a positive note, I have found the installation documentation for MythTV
to be great. I have been amazed at the speed in which changes are
integrated both into the code and better yet, the documentation. User
documentation can improve. For example, while I installed pre-built
binaries (I know boo hiss, you damn lazy geek, I am) I couldn't find out
what keys did what until I found the keys.txt file outside of the gorgeous
HTML documentation! But all in all, thanks to all of you who have taken
the time to make this happen.
If you got this far and are entertained, then please do one of the
following:
1. Post your story of Linux/MythTV pain!
2. Offer an opinion about the best OS is for MythTV. As you can tell
from above, I am currently using RedHat and am facing the dilemma of
where to go. Is Fedora the right answer or should I consider ?
Have a great day!!!
William
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