Ok…. My little one has been really getting into the games I have on my pc lately.. The main issue is that we don’t have sound. From the posts on Ubuntu, I just get the impression that this is been happening often.
So I’m choosing to look at this a learning experience to preserve my good attitude toward Ubuntu..
I put a post on Ubuntu, guide to sound Layers and I got what appear’s to be some helpful hints (hopefully)… Anyway, I was looking for a basic explanation of how the sound layering is layout in Ubuntu. I found myself at this link, How it works, SOUND
Defining my problem is that the games that are using SDL are not working… Ok… I need a few minutes to study this link.
Okk.. Bottom layer is Hardware…
So… I figure out what audio chip I have..
A couple of ways of doing this.
To get some very basic info try
lspci
To get a little more detail try
lspci -vv
And there is yet another way..
sudo lshw
I suppose another way is to open the computer up and read the name of the sound card.
It appears to be a sound blaster sound card sb0249 audigy2.
Lets see if I can find something on that..
I found the link to the manuals at this link:
http://ccftp.creative.com/manualdn/Manuals/TSD/797/English.pdf
And these worked…
http://ccftp.creative.com/manualdn/Manuals/TSD/2380/Audigy2.pdf
http://ccftp.creative.com/manualdn/Manuals/TSD/797/English.pdf
Ok… When I started my computer this morning…. I got sort of unusual update message…
I wish I copied the whole thing.. Something about restoring ALSA default settings by typing:
asoundconf set-default-card
Sort of weird.. Ok,,, Lets give that a go.
Ok… So when I first tried
sudo asoundconf list
which returned:
Please note that you are attempting to run asoundconf as a privileged superuser, which may have unintended consequences.
Names of available sound cards:
V8237
Audigy2
jonas@Ubuntu4:~$
So then I entered.
asoundconf set-default-card Audigy2
I went into synaptic put in audigy.
I got three hits:
These are my choices:
ALSA emu10k1/2 patch loader
A patch loader for use with the emu10k1 ALSA driver. Supports Sound
Blaster Live!, Audigy and Audigy 2.
ALSA emu10k1/2 patch-loader library
This is the runtime library for the ld10k1 patch loader for use with
the emu10k1 ALSA driver. Supports Sound Blaster Live!, Audigy and
Audigy 2.
ALSA emu10k1/2 patch-loader library development files
These are the development files for the ld10k1 patch loader for use with
the emu10k1 ALSA driver. Supports Sound Blaster Live!, Audigy and
Audigy 2.
I guess I reboot an see what happens.
Ok… Now this is probably the most interesting link I found so far for my situation….
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-793834.html
One of the posters talked about qjackctl
I loaded it up…. and fired her up. (Didn’t do me much good.
Ok,,,, So I’m going to try the quick start solution..
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=997506
It basically said, load these bad boy up.
asoundconf-gtk
gnome-alsamixer
There where loaded already for me.
libasound2
libasound2-plugins
This also got loaded but it unauthenticated….
pa dev chooser
Ok… Went through the instructions got to the point where they said crank up the volume and unmute the speaker and I happened to notice that my speakers where muted… I corrected that but maelstrom wont play…
Wait a second. I can dual boot on this machine. I should fire up youtube or something and see if I get audio….
Hmm.. In XP sound works just fine. The conclusion is my hardware layer is working just fine….
So… I guess it’s back to the guide.. from the beginning….
Ok.. All the software has been loaded up..
Things get interesting at these steps:
Once you have all these packages installed, close any application that may be trying to use sound and go to System/Preferences/Sound and set all the preferences from automatic to PulseAudio except Default Mixer Tracks which you should set to your sound card.
I changed the device displayed to: Audigy 2 ZS[SB0353] (Alsa mixer)
When I hit test… I get this message
audiotestsrc wave=sine freq=512 ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! gconfaudiosink: Failed to connect: Connection refused
But…. since this guide didn’t say to test… I’m just going to go with the flow at the moment.
Go to System/Preferences/Default Sound Card and choose pulseaudio.
Check….
Next, right click on the little speaker on the top panel, that is the Panel Volume Control. Click Open Volume Control and make sure it is set to the same thing as the Default Mixer Tracks.
That would be File=>change Device
Check:Audigy 2 ZS[SB0353] (Alsa mixer)
Click on Preferences and make sure that Master and PCM and whatever else you want to control are selected.
That would be Edit=>Preferences
(I basically turning everything on except for)
Make sure that any boxes labeled SPDIF or IEC958 are not checked
Done… (I guess saying check will get confusing)
Push up the sliders in the volume control and make sure the little speakers do not have little red mute marks on them.
Done
Ok… This gets a little confusing.. It seems there are preferences in a couple spots. There are preference’s within open volume control and also when you write click the speakers. They seem to offer the same options.. The author only talked about one. I set them both up the same way….
Go to Applications/Sound and Video/GNOME ALSA Mixer and see if there is anything you missed because sometimes, for some cards, not all the options are in the Panel Volume Control.
I seem to be getting an error when I get to this point..
An error occurred while loading or saving configuration information for GNOME ALSA Mixer. Some of your configuration settings may not work properly.
I googled a little bit of the error message and it brought me to this post.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6614307#post6614307
Hm… So I have at least two issues that don’t seem to be following the plan…
I wasn’t sure if 8.04.2 had stuff beyond normal upgrades…. Supposedly it doesn’t…
Anyway this actually got me a little closer http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1050055
It seems I can get some test tones in Alsa now…. System->Preferences->Sound… When set to sound… It seems some progress is getting made.
