[kde3] KMix ignores HDMI outputs

I have at least 40 different TW, Slowroll and Leap installations using KDE3, mostly to the exclusion of any other DE installed besides IceWM. Since early last year, typically right after a zypper up or dup, I've been collecting inventories on them of installed sound-related packages, and setup options, such as from inxi -ASaz alsactl info wpctl status pw-cli list-objects Device pw-cli list-objects Node aplay -lL systemctl --global --user status pipewire.{service,socket} systemctl --global --user status wireplumber and sometimes others. The attachment is one such collection from 15.5. I've been hoping to find the right combination such that alsa, pipewire and/or jack sound always works for everything that uses it - without requiring pavucontrol or pulseaudio be installed. WRT KMix it seems I have narrowed down what is required or not when the audio connection is the pinjack output of motherboard or discrete audio card, or a laptop's built in speakers, but not if output is expected from HDMI or DP, whether from discrete GPU card or from motherboard graphics outputs. Even when KDE3 system sounds work through HDMI or DP, KMix seems oblivious to possible existence of speakers attached to the ends of DP or HDMI ports. It seems there must be somewhere that the default audio output needs to be registered according to what is connected, or specifically as desired, but I've been unable to locate any such setting, while KMix seems must be permanently directed to the analog output in every case one exists, which is virtually always. Trying to configure KDE3 sound through KControl on these produces: "Unable to start the sound server to retrieve possible sound I/O methods. Only automatic detection will be available." With KDE3 system sounds, automatic detection is obviously working, but not for KMix3. HDA Intel HDMI can be selected from the mixer window, but all that window shows are yellow dots for e.g. 3 IEC958s - sans vertical sliders. I note that all my most recent PCs have only Intel CPUs with integrated GPU, and all have multiple digital outputs, either one DVI and one HDMI, one DVI, one DP and one HDMI, or one DP and two HDMI. Normally when in use these PCs are using all 2 or 3 available digital video outputs, and those displays getting HDMI or DP input have speakers I wish used. Does anyone here know what is happening, or not, that keeps KMix3 from using any DP or HDMI Intel HDA output? Is this a known KDE3-specific issue? I suspect it shouldn't be, because on TDE and Plasma installations the problem is similar, just less clearly analog-works, digital-not, with different mixer UIs. Can a disabling of analog out or preference to digital out be made by the system, and to be recognized by KMix? Is there some secret method of configuring KMix to see the digital out? If I were to report on b.o.o. is there any likelihood somebody would try to fix it? If would be nice if we still have KDE3 in 15.6 and 16.0 that audio would just work without including pulseaudio to degrade audio performance. -- Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, based on faith, not based on science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata

On 1/31/24 18:05, Felix Miata wrote:
Does anyone here know what is happening, or not, that keeps KMix3 from using any DP or HDMI Intel HDA output? Is this a known KDE3-specific issue? I suspect it shouldn't be, because on TDE and Plasma installations the problem is similar, just less clearly analog-works, digital-not, with different mixer UIs.
Can a disabling of analog out or preference to digital out be made by the system, and to be recognized by KMix? Is there some secret method of configuring KMix to see the digital out? If I were to report on b.o.o. is there any likelihood somebody would try to fix it? If would be nice if we still have KDE3 in 15.6 and 16.0 that audio would just work without including pulseaudio to degrade audio performance.
Short answer is No, but damn solid work cataloging what is required for sound. I'm still on 15.4, with pipewire and as you describe, all works find but for the occasional random unrelated jack crash triggered in /usr/lib/qt3/lib64/libqt-mt.so.3 with some relation to /lib64/libthread_db.so.1. Unfortunately, all I have is analog and no hdmi or dp to check, so I can't help with those outputs. However, I do have a couple of thoughts: First, always, has TDE patched for anything similar? I know you keep up with what Slávek and Michele have done lately, but the TDE installed base size across a number of distros usually means it squeaks first on issues like this. Second, this may be a perfect opportunity to look at the kmix code to see if anything was ever implemented for the digital interfaces specifically. I don't know, but I suspect that when you have hdmi or DP sound, it isn't because there was anything ever implemented for them, but rather than those interfaces draw from the general sound API (to some extent) to implement sound over those connection, but likely also require certain API calls that were never implemented in kmix. I have never done sound programming, so I'm not sure where to look to see if what kmix does. If Ilya or Yasuhiko know better where to look, it would be a great time to see if there is anything that needs adding to make kmix work with the hdmi/DP interfaces. (anybody else a KDE sound guru is included too) However, I do need you to confirm something I just stumbled across that locks up konqueror. If you have a .kcrash file saved, try and preview it with the advance text viewer preview. Here it locks konqueror requiring a kill. If you don't have it, I'll chock it up to a mixed library somewhere. My 15.4 install is quite old in the tooth, and with the number of repos I have for embedded compilers, etc.. I wouldn't be surprised if I pulled in a conflicting lib. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.

David C. Rankin composed on 2024-01-31 22:15 (UTC-0600): I do need you to confirm something I just stumbled across that
locks up konqueror. If you have a .kcrash file saved, try and preview it with the advance text viewer preview. Here it locks konqueror requiring a kill. If you don't have it, I'll chock it up to a mixed library somewhere. My 15.4 install is quite old in the tooth, and with the number of repos I have for embedded compilers, etc.. I wouldn't be surprised if I pulled in a conflicting lib.
No luck finding .kcrash anywhere so far, but I rarely use Konq. I use MC and FCL almost exclusively as file managers, and rarely Konq. 15.4 had support terminated a month ago. Why have you been putting off 15.5? -- Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, based on faith, not based on science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata

On 2/1/24 00:27, Felix Miata wrote:
15.4 had support terminated a month ago. Why have you been putting off 15.5?
Haven't had the 24 hours of time it takes to move. Went to mozilla repo for ff/tb updates -- the rest I just watch the announce list for. I'll do a fresh install on a new SSD of 15.5 in the next week or two :) -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.

David C. Rankin composed on 2024-02-02 01:17 (UTC-0600):
Felix Miata wrote:
15.4 had support terminated a month ago. Why have you been putting off 15.5?
Haven't had the 24 hours of time it takes to move. Went to mozilla repo for ff/tb updates -- the rest I just watch the announce list for. I'll do a fresh install on a new SSD of 15.5 in the next week or two :)
Move? TW has made zypper dup effective and reliable. 3/4 or so of my 15.5s are upgrades from something older, and most that were fresh installations, were made as alphas. I just finished my first 15.6 installation since before Christmas. I think this was #3, out of my current total of 10. My main 15.5 from which this is written was fresh in July, and I did it again less than a month ago. I like upgrades much better, but there were two somewhat compelling local reasons I didn't want this to be an upgrade from this one's 15.4, one of which was a machine migration that included switching boot drive from SATA to MBR NVME, which I haven't developed a knack for doing smoothly yet. -- Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, based on faith, not based on science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata

David C. Rankin composed on 2024-01-31 22:15 (UTC-0600):
First, always, has TDE patched for anything similar? I know you keep up with what Slávek and Michele have done lately, but the TDE installed base size across a number of distros usually means it squeaks first on issues like this.
While I have a good sized number of TDE installations, they are all just for testing, in most cases with no login users except root. Unless I report a bug, I don't really know much about how they do what they do. What I do know is TDE's KMix generally works in openSUSE (and consistently does not in Debian), while its system sounds are reliably root blocked by systemd's pipewire/wireplumber misconfiguration I have yet to determine how to fix. -- Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, based on faith, not based on science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata
participants (3)
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David C. Rankin
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David C. Rankin
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Felix Miata