On 10/10/13 03:07, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
Hi - I just installed openSuSE 12.3 x64 on an ASUS G75V series laptop and ran into a quirk with the KDE mixer (KDE Version 4.10.5 "release 1") that I suspect is a simple oops on somebodies part. This laptop does have two stereo speakers. When I bring up the KDE mixer dialog window, click on Settings -> Audio Setup, that brings up the Phonon - KDE Control Module dialog window. From here I select my sound card and set the profile to "Analog Stereo Output" Then if I click on the test buttons for the "Front Left" and "Front Right" the "Front Left" works fine but the "Front Right" also comes out on the Front Left speaker as well. BTW this DID work fine under openSuSE12.2 so I suspect something broke in this release.
Now for a bit of further quirkiness.... For grins I also tried the "Analog Surround 4.0 Output" profile. This time both the Front Left and the Front Right test buttons produced sound on the correct speaker, but both the Rear Left and Rear Right test buttons produce sound on the Front Left speaker and at a much higher volume level than the sound produced by the Front Left and Front Right test buttons.
I kinda suspect this is a simple problem to solve and somebody dropped the ball on testing this software code. Any ideas on how to get my KDE mixer to behave properly? Thanks in advance...
Marc..
You have "started off with the wrong foot", so to speak :-) . Thanks Basil, I just discovered you had answered me on this newsgroup, more completely, than on the opensuse-kde newsgroup so I will respond here. I dunno about "starting off with the wrong foot" I simply had installed openSuSE12.3 x64 with whatever defaults it had used for controlling my sound system. So perhaps there is something wrong with
On 10/10/2013 12:47 AM, Basil Chupin wrote: the way things are getting installed?
The sound works using Alsa so you have to first configure Alsa. but do this you need to disable pulseaudio - and to do that:
run YaST>Sound>Other> and disable Pulseaudio - but before doing this first chose which sound card/chip is to be used as the default sound device. BTW,if you have a sound chop on your mobo as well as a sound PCIe card, decide which one you are going to use if you going to use the sound card then disable the chip in the BIOS.
OK I disabled Pulseaudio as you suggested, but that did not seem to make any difference alone (will say more in a moment) As for sound cards, my laptop comes with two sound systems. One is on the nVidia video card and that is for controlling the sound level over an HDMI port. I am not interested in this one at the moment. The other is for a sound chip on my motherboard and this is the one I am concerned about. I have set it as my default sound/primary sound card in the YaST sound configuration tool, as well as the "Master Channel" in the KDE/KMIX tool.
While you are in YaST>Sound>Other test for sound.
Once you have done the above, open a terminal/console and run (as user) alsamixer. Use F6 to select your sound device; use F5 to see all the available channels; activate/deactivate the channels to give you sound from your speakers (here it pays to have something producing sound - like a CD or DVD - so that you can judge if you are getting sound).
I opened the alsamixer, and used F6 to select my internal sound chip (HDA Intel PCH) as you suggested. That gives me a bunch of controls, some of which I understand (Master, Headphon) and many which I do not (PCM, PCM Loop, Front, Surround, S/PDIF, S/PDIF D) That said, I tried to figure out what Front and Surround controls are doing, both in the alsamixer konsole and in the YaST2 Sound/Volume Settings and I got some surprising results! If I set the Surround control, in the Alsamixer, all the way down to 0, AND if I set the Surround control in the YaST2 Sound setting to 50 then I am getting sound out of BOTH my left and right speakers, when I use the KMIX test buttons!!! I have no idea what "Surround" means in this context, in YaST2 it almost seems to be some sort of balance control, but in Alsamixer I simply do not grok it's purpose and meaning. So I got it working, BUT before I close out this discussion, there is some really strange interactions going on, between the Alsamixer and the YaST2 Sound setup that I discovered and want to pass along. First weirdness, if I change the Surround setting in the YaST2 sound controller, it also changes the Surround setting in the Alsamixer, BUT NOT PROPORTIONATELY! And if I change the Surround setting in the Alsamixer, it does NOT affect the Surround setting in the YaST2 sound controller. Second weirdness, this same non-orthogonal behavior is also demonstrated with the Front controls in the Alsamixer and the YaST2 sound controller, If I change the Front control in the YaST2 sound module, it affects the Alsamixer Front control, but not vice-versa. Also, the Front control in the Alsamixer controls the volume levels of my speakers, just like the Master control does, so I do not grok the purpose of having a separate Front control and it seems very confusing to have to adjust both of these controls in order to get any sound out of my speakers. While changes to the Front control in the YaST2 module does affect sound levels, indirectly, it appears to do so by making the Alsamixer Front control change, it can become confusing if the YaST2 Front controller is set to zero, and the Alsamixer Front control is then changed to 100, i.e. the two tools will then be reporting different control levels for the Front speakers!
Now that you have sound you can fiddle with KDE mixer if you want - but I wouldn't. You can even reactivate pulseaudio (in YaST) if you want, if you really need it that is, and install pavucontrol (not installed by default) to be able to have control over pulseaudio.
I haven't reactivated pulseaudio, dunno why I should or what it gives me in addition to what I apparently now have working. I would prefer to use the KDE/KMIX tool as it is more intuitive, to me, to operate than Alsamixer or YaST2 and it is conveniently placed on my kicker bar where I can easily find it. I will admit I do NOT grok this sound system model and why there are so many different tools for controlling it. I would far prefer a seamless integration of a simple sound system model, into the KDE desktop, and be done with it. But that is just my 2 cents worth, being the opinionated SOB that I am... ;-) Marc...
BC
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