[SOLVED] Play Digital Audio by default

business_kid · 03-13-2021, 12:11 PM

On my system, I have 2 sets of speakers

Old, sucky 2W(?) laptop speakers.
Newer sucky 3-4W 2nd Monitor speakers fed (Digital) HDMI

Headphones simply have a switch interrupt on the Analogue speakers AFAICT, and I hardly use them.

The PulseAudio playback menu allows a choice of Analogue or Digital streams. The 'Output Devices' menu does not (Recent Slackware64-Current). The whole system seems to default to Analogue (= Laptop) speakers, whereas I want a default to digital. The onboard soundcard is from Intel

Quote:

Originally Posted by lspci

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)

Any ideas on this?

aus9 · 03-15-2021, 02:24 AM

Hi until you get a better reply...have you tried a
/etc/modprobe.conf file

Or a /etc/asoundrc.conf
Or

$HOME/.asoundrc?

business_kid · 03-15-2021, 04:53 AM

Thanks for the reply. No to all suggestions, because

/etc/modprobe.conf controls kernel modules and I think they load as needed.

/etc/asoundrc or ~/.asoundrc set up alsa; but as things stand, pulseaudio overrides alsa, and wants settings to be left to pulse. I made big changes in the past with alsa and no pulseaudio on this box. I had a funny setup on else in the past for a special event, but that was most of 6 years ago, and pulseaudio has since taken over. Software requires it.

This thread seems to expose a knowledge gap, that if it goes beyond and click, pulse users are left scratching their heads…

aus9 · 03-15-2021, 07:05 AM

Hi am not aware of media playing software that needs pulse. If you are alluding to firefox...i can use apulse.

Anyhows it is unusual for analog to be detected first without a config.

Why not post the ouput of

aplay -l

And the contents of any file i have named.

Are you using a systemwide pulse configs or home based?

Sorry for no code box on phone

Leaping ahead...some people need to toggle off on for spdif in alsamixer

Try

alsamixer -c1

Emerson · 03-15-2021, 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aus9

Hi am not aware of media playing software that needs pulse. If you are alluding to firefox...i can use apulse.

Correct, and even Firefox still has working ALSA support, although binary distributors do not use it, you can compile Firefox yourself and no apulse is needed.

business_kid · 03-15-2021, 10:47 AM

Hadn't heard of apulse. Anyhow, I have read comments by those in the know explaining how programs require it as it suited the software interfacing better. It may all be wrong, but distros have gone for pulse. Even Slackware, which did not adopt SeLinux or Systemd, and still offers lilo, elilo, & grub has pulseaudio.

On software, Zoom offers an option for digital sound. Skype requires pulse, I am assured. And no I haven't checked the small long winded and very boring print to see if it still does.

Alsa isn't much better. The UI is a mixer

. Angthing else required a system wide config, or a user config which perhaps gets dropped in and out by script, and I'd need help with the syntax.

Emerson · 03-15-2021, 12:21 PM

Slackware went to PA for a single reason - at the time there was no way to get Bluetooth working with plain ALSA. There is now, but PulseAudio is like cancer, you let it in and then it is hard to get rid of it. In reality PulsAudio is just a parasite layer between ALSA (or OSS4) and sound applications. PA developers have deep understanding how ALSA works and PA makes it real easy to configure ALSA. I personally refuse to use PA only because it makes ALSA configuration a breeze. I better configure ALSA myself and live happily ever after knowing I did take the right way instead of the easy way.

business_kid · 03-15-2021, 03:15 PM

That explains pulse in slackware. I was wondering.

Digging myself, I find that /etc/pulse/client.conf has the lines

Code:

; default-sink =
; default-source =
; default-server =
; default-dbus-server =

and apparently you can specify things there. It's defaulting to Analogue; as all the other /etc/pulse/ files have a .new prefix, and ~/.pulse doesn't exist, I presume the default is coming from elsewhere. I have to remove the semi-colon to make any line(s) active. Does anyone have a breeze what to put in there?

default-sink = digital?
default-sink = HDMI?
default-sink = all

I tried all of three above, and the thing that worked wass commenting the line out

aus9 · 03-15-2021, 06:54 PM

Try

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...Audio/Examples

business_kid · 03-16-2021, 04:56 AM

I have them up for reading. Howtos normally scare me away because they are full of bilge. But that particular alsa howto seems free of. Normally compulsory howto sections are omitted entirely, e.g.

What this howto is about
What this howto is not about
Scope & limitations of this howto
Biography of 1st howto author
Biography of 2nd author …
Biography on nth author
Organization of this howto
uses in early computers
development since early computers
Operation in various operating systems
etc.

business_kid · 03-16-2021, 09:01 AM

OK. I think I'm making progress. followed this route

pacmd list-sinks
Cobbled up a line from those and replaced /etc/pulse/default.pa with it.
Here's my line: set-default-sink alsa_output.pci-0000:00:1b.0.HDMI 0
I had to switch once to digital in the playback menu pf pavucontrol, but that was it.
Sound is a disaster in getty consoles, but frankly I don't care.