Are you thinking that it might bring the mic to life on hw0,0 hw0,1 or hw0,2? It didn't. It did set the mic volume level to zero in alsa-mixer though.

Mostly just curious if it'd help. Have you tried updating the version of your alsa? via source or via borrowing packages from other flavors of debian. snd-hda-intel is a bit of a brute. Before my Delta 44, that's what my Desktop has. Mostly a nice card, but the alsa driver for it seemed very buggy. To the point of overriding buffers and the likes to get a decent, not to imply good recording out of it. Although that was circa 2007. Late 2007, but still. 1.0.17 version of alsa that comes with current lenny is quite dated. I think 1.0.16 was the version back at that time, with 1.0.14 and 1.0.15 addressing several issues with my particular card at that time. To include some mixer related stuff. Just saying that 1.0.17 version of alsa is ancient for all intents, your chipset is NOT.

And then I got the Delta 44 and was like pfft, integrated sound sucks. Of course the Delta sounds better on the stereo system than studio monitors, but still. It brought some new life to CDs I might not have otherwise ever listened to after an initial viewing. And then I got my Korg MR-1000 and was like.......

I can't make head or tail out of the stuff in /var/lib/alsa/asound.state - it looks like this:

control.13 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'Mic Playback Switch'
value.0 true
value.1 true
}

which doesn't look so useful to me in this situation.

I just checked backports, and they don't have alsa in there.

I just checked the package dependencies and it came out with this:

adam@isengard:~/projects/atomic$ apt-cache depends alsa-base
alsa-base
Depends: lsof
Depends: module-init-tools
Depends: linux-sound-base
Suggests: apmd
Suggests: alsa-oss
Suggests: oss-compat
Recommends: alsa-utils
Conflicts: alsa-utils
Conflicts: discover
Conflicts: discover1
Conflicts: <lsof-2.2>
Conflicts: <modutils>


Is it really saying it recommends and conflicts with alsa-utils?

# alsactl store

When you run that, it saves your mixer settings to /var/lib/asound.state. /etc/asound* on other distros. I'd say file a bug report, but they're going to require you to run the lastest and greatest before acknowledging any bugs. You could file against debian stable/lenny I guess, but support there is probably lacking, since it's probably already addressed / fixed in later versions of debian.

alsa-project.org

get the sources.

or

kernel.org

It is integrated into the kernel at this point. Running a custom and current kernel should update those drivers. Or just wait six months to two years for the next evolution of debian. Why would you, when you can update now? Many means to an end.

Yes I could update now but last year I introduced a rigid policy of sticking with stable releases on my 'production' machine - i.e. my home/office workstation. A couple of years ago I had etch while it was in testing, and although it was entertaining, I calculated I spent huge amounts of time keeping it on the straight and narrow.

So basically I'm just going to have to live with it until squeeze hits stable. In fact by then I expect I'll have swapped computers anyway and hopefully I'll have one with an easier sound card, or if not, I'm going to make sure I test it all properly straight after the new install.

It's been an interesting voyage through the netherworld of alsa, and thanks v. much for the continual injection of ideas. As they say, live in hope, die in despair ;)

You could always get a currently supported card and use it with lenny. No need to do much of anything fancy. M-Audio Mobile Pre's run about $80 on craigslist. As long as 16/48 and 2 channels is good enough. Just re-index to make it your default card aka card 0. Or something like my Delta 44. Although not for all as it's 1/4" inputs and outputs ONLY. So headphone preamp + microphone preamp to make those conversions to match "normal" cards. Lots of options for little to no cash. If you'd want to stick with your production model, then you're just a piece of hardware away. And when you scrap your old machine, you can recycle the peripheral to the new machine. Or just get something usb and class compliant. Or wait for squeeze. Many means to an end. Although if you're heart is set on waiting, you might do a test install to make sure squeeze doesn't currently have the same issue. That way you can file a bug report and get it fixed before squeeze comes out so you don't have to wait for the version after the next version.

Apparently squeeze is going into freeze soon, and that means it's close to going stable!

I just got a new KVM switch and I found it additionally does sound - so it pipes them all to one set of speakers. Hopefully it doesn't switch them but merges them instead (haven't plugged it all in yet) and hopefully the quality will not be totally slaughtered by it.

Interestingly the line-in input to my problem child sound card works - perhaps it is has the same config problem as the mic, since the sound goes direct to the speakers, although in this case it makes sense as opposed to the mic.

I've put the sound output from my other computer via my new KVM into this one (that's got the mic problem), so I can get sound from there thro my hifi too - I never wanted to have the extra pair of speakers cluttering my desk.