[arch-general] alsa, hdmi, and the invisible magic output

[Samuel Martín Moro]

Good evening everyone,


I'm using arch since a while now.
Everything was working just fine, until a few weeks (months?) ago.

Since, I had a few problems I can't understand :


The first symptom was the day I lost sound on my regular audio output
(moterhboard intel HDA).
I finally noticed sound was actually send to my TV through my G92 9800GT.

I had a long period during while I was always switching my speakers wire
from my tower to the screen, and back to the computer.
The main problem beeing that, after putting the screen in sleep mode, I
wasn't able to get the sound back without restarting X.


Since, the problem changed, somewhat.
Now, vlc sends its sound in both my motherboard and my graphic card outputs.
While banshee's still only using the motherboard one.


The most recent symptom is that, when I'm already playing some music with
banshee, I can't have sound on any web browser (opera, firefox & chromium
tested so far).
I first though it was flash-related.
But since I can't have sound while playing quakelive too (and AFAIK, QLive
doesn't uses flash), I'm a bit confused...
What could be happening?


The only way I can get sound working back in the web browser is to shut down
banshee and restart the browser.
And I won't be able to make banshee work again before closing the browser,
and then starting banshee.


The following error is continuously reported when executing chrome from
terminal, while using banshee:
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1018:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave

I searched for some details on google.
It seems the first thing I may do is to specify which audio device use by
default.
So, I tried to find where my HDMI output is...

faust at alpha : aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: AD198x Digital [AD198x Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
faust at alpha : lspci | grep -i audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio
Controller
faust at alpha /proc/asound : l -R /proc/asound/
/proc/asound/:
total 0
dr-xr-xr-x 5 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 card0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 cards
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 devices
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 hwdep
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 Dec 2 23:45 Intel -> card0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 modules
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 oss
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 pcm
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 seq
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 timers
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 version

/proc/asound/card0:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 codec#0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 id
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 oss_mixer
dr-xr-xr-x 5 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 pcm0c
dr-xr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 pcm0p
dr-xr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 pcm1p

/proc/asound/card0/pcm0c:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 info
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 oss
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sub0
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sub1
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sub2

/proc/asound/card0/pcm0c/sub0:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 hw_params
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 info
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 prealloc
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 prealloc_max
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 status
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sw_params

/proc/asound/card0/pcm0c/sub1:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 hw_params
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 info
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 prealloc
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 prealloc_max
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 status
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sw_params

/proc/asound/card0/pcm0c/sub2:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 hw_params
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 info
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 prealloc
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 prealloc_max
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 status
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sw_params

/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 info
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 oss
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sub0

/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 hw_params
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 info
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 prealloc
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 prealloc_max
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 status
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sw_params

/proc/asound/card0/pcm1p:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 info
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 oss
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sub0

/proc/asound/card0/pcm1p/sub0:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 hw_params
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 info
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 prealloc
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 prealloc_max
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 status
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sw_params

/proc/asound/oss:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 devices
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 sndstat

/proc/asound/seq:
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 clients
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 drivers
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 oss
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 queues
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 2 23:45 timer
faust at alpha : uname -a
Linux alpha.example.com 2.6.36-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Nov 24 00:39:57 CET
2010 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 920 @ 2.67Ghzs GenuineIntel GNU/Linux


I'm not sure to understand what represent pcm0c, pcm0p and pcm1p...

Launching alsamixer, I only have one device (identified as default and hda
intel)
The last listed output is 'HDMI', and indeed, controls my screen speakers'
sound level.


So, I don't understand.
How is it possible to have only one card recognized, and controlling both of
them through the same alsamixer/gnome-volume-control panel?

What can I do?
Setting HDMI as default (only) output? How to do so?
 Wait for a patch? Is it a kernel-related bug? Or with nvidia driver?
Would that even fix the banshee/browser troubles accessing device?


This arch worked for more than a year.
I guess that's the bad side of mainstream distros.
Whatever. I'm still enjoying my stay.



Also, I often get this warn:
*** NSPlugin Viewer *** WARNING: unhandled variable 18 (<unknown variable>)
in NPN_GetValue()

I'm quite sure it's not related to my problem, but I'm still curious: wtf?
I read on some ubuntu forum it's related to flash, kernel & x86_64.
It's seems to be fixed on ubuntu. Did I misunderstood? (When) would it come
to arch?



Thanks for your help, and your time!


-- 
Samuel Martín Moro
{EPITECH.} tek5
CamTrace S.A.S
  (+033) 1 41 38 37 60
  1 Allée de la Venelle
  92150 Suresnes
  FRANCE

"Nobody wants to say how this works.
  Maybe nobody knows ..."
                      Xorg.conf(5)