Debian sound configuration

http://xtronics.com/reference/Debian-sound.html

Debian sound configuration

How to get sound working

The sound system has low level drivers (ALSA) and daemonds above them that figure out which program should get access first. Today (late 2004 Sarge) things are in transition to using alsa and jack for really quality sound without the problems of the past.

What to install

alsa-base       ALSA driver configuration files

alsa-modules    ALSA driver modules

alsa-oss        ALSA OSS-compatibility library

alsa-source     ALSA driver sources

alsa-utils      ALSA utilities

alsamixergui    graphical soundcard mixer for ALSA soundcard driver

alsaplayer      PCM player designed for ALSA

alsaplayer-com  PCM player designed for ALSA (common files)

alsaplayer-gtk  PCM player designed for ALSA (GTK version)

alsaplayer-jack PCM player designed for ALSA (jack output module)

alsaplayer-oss  PCM player designed for ALSA (OSS output module)

snd-gtk-alsa    Sound file editor (GTK+ user interface)

vlc-plugin-alsa ALSA audio output plugin for VLC

alsaplayer-jack PCM player designed for ALSA (jack output module)

jack            Rip and encode CDs with one command

jackd           JACK Audio Connection Kit (server and example clients)

What to config

run lspci | grep audio This should tell you what audio card you have Get module-assistant and run it and select the audio card from the list (you can fix an error here by running dpkg-reconfigure alsa-source) Stick the followign in .bash_profile

jack -d alsa &

>> this fails to work all the time right now - let me know if you get Jack working well under KDE (3.2 right now)

Testing

run

alsaconf

Then run

alsactl store

then run

speaker-test

In KDE (3.2 for now) set sound system to use ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound architecture) Please email me with errors, omissions, and other information at inform@xtronics.com