With Bill's kind help, I have this working now. In Debian, there's a
/etc/modprobe.d directory instead of any modprobe config file. In that
directory was a file, alsa-base. I had to comment out everything in
that file and add these lines:
alias snd-1 snd-usb-audio
alias char-major-116 snd
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-1 snd-1
alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-1-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-1-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss
I rebooted, having to reboot twice, and it worked. (This is an embedded
system and it didn't come up the first time -- rebooting was easier than
pulling out the null-modem serial cable and troubleshooting.)
It's working now and there are only 2 problems, but at least the big
part is done. Here's what I'm still trying to do:
1) I want to read the stream with Darkice, but I'm not sure which device
to read from. I'm guessing it's /dev/snd/pcmC0d0c. I'm also not sure
which device to specify if I use, say, aumix, instead of alsamixer
(instead of /dev/mixer). I have a script or two that uses aumix to set
volumes and stuff. While I can convert to alsactl, it'd be easier to
just know which device to use for aumix.
2) I can record the input and play it back over the output. I can
record one file and play another at the same time, so bandwidth isn't a
problem, but at this point, for some reason, the incoming sound is not
automatically piped through from input to output. It'd be nice if I
could fix this. In Alsamixer, I have Bass, Bass Cap, Bass Boost,
Treble, Treble Cap, PCM, Mic, and Auto Gain. Both Bass Boost and Auto
Gain are inactive and none of the keyboard controls make them active.
I can just use an adapter to get the sound output, but if there's an
easy way to pipe the sound through the computer, it'd be helpful.
Thanks for any help!
Hal
On Saturday 27 December 2008, Hal Vaughan wrote:
> I'm currently using an iMic USB sound card on a Soekris net5501
> system that can handle USB 2.0, even if it is a slower CPU in
> comparison. (Unit specs here: http://soekris.com/net5501.htm) Before
> I was using this (the iMic), I was using a Startech USB sound card
> (here on Newegg: http://tinyurl.com/5v4n4k). I had errors with that
> card which led me to the iMic.
>
> This computer is a general file/printer/nfs/nis/dns server but
> nothing that's heavy duty except possibly the printer stuff, but I
> haven't been printing while I've been testing. I have a HD radio
> hooked up to one USB port and I can control it with an app I wrote
> for tuning, volume, and other settings. It has analog stereo output
> that, on an older and bigger system, I ran into the sound card
> through the Line In jack and used a regular output jack to go to my
> speakers. (I prefer to do this instead of splitting and weakening
> the analog audio from the radio output.) I also take the input
> stream and use it with Icecast2 to make it available on my home audio
> system. This always worked just fine with a Soundblaster in a PCI
> slot.
>
> With the Startech USB sound card the sound from the Line In went to
> the speakers with no problem, but whenever I tried to read that sound
> stream with darkice or anything else, I kept getting errors that I
> tracked down to an indication there wasn't enough bandwidth to send
> the audio signal through from the card to the USB port. (I used
> arecord and finally got error messages that helped me to track this
> down.)
>
> Since I could find nothing to show me that I could work around this
> in any way, I finally started searching for other USB sound cards and
> found a few references to people using an iMic with Debian Etch. It
> seemed like they just plugged it in and it worked. No such luck.
>
> Yet I dont' have access to the card. Before running alsaconf, when
> the card was hooked up and I wasn't getting error messages from
> amixer or alsamixer, here's the stuff from /proc:
> [root@...:~]$ cat /proc/asound/cards
> 0 [system ]: USB-Audio - iMic USB audio system
> Griffin Technology, Inc iMic USB audio system
> at usb-0000:00:15.1-1.7, full spe
>
> [root@...:~]$ cat /proc/asound/devices
> 0: [ 0] : control
> 1: : sequencer
> 16: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
> 24: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
> 33: : timer
>
> Alsaconf had to probe for ISA cards and first picked the Yamaha card,
> but it didn't work. I tried telling it to look for various cards and
> it generally picked the first card in the list and matched it up --
> except when I picked Soundblaster -- it didn't see my card as a
> soundblaster.
>
> Here's output from the first time I ran alsaconf:
> [root@...:~]$ alsaconf
> Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-cs4236 snd-seq-dummy
> snd-seq- oss snd-seq-midi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-pcm-oss
> snd-mixer-oss snd-cs4236-lib snd-mpu401-uart snd-cs4231-lib
> snd-opl3-lib snd-hwdep snd-pcm snd-page-alloc snd-rawmidi
> snd-seq-device snd-timer (failed: modules still loaded: snd-opl3-lib
> snd-hwdep snd-mpu401-uart snd-cs4236- lib snd-seq-dummy snd-seq-oss
> snd-seq-midi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device
> snd-cs4231-lib snd-pcm snd-page-alloc snd- timer).
> Building card database...
> Probing legacy cards.. This may take a few minutes..
> Probing: opl3sa2grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such
> file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
>
> : FOUND!!
>
> Running update-modules...
> Loading driver...
> FATAL: Error inserting snd_opl3sa2
> (/lib/modules/2.6.18-6-486/kernel/sound/isa/snd-opl3sa2.ko): No such
> device
> FATAL: Error running install command for snd_opl3sa2
> Setting default volumes...
> amixer: Mixer attach default error: No such file or directory
> =====================================================================
>========== Now ALSA is ready to use.
> For adjustment of volumes, use your favorite mixer.
> Have a lot of fun!
> -----------------------------------------
> After it runs, there's no sound cards in /proc/asound/cards so
> alsamixer or anything else won't run. Since it looked like it was
> just grabbing the first driver to use, I eliminated the Yamaha
> drivers (Kept getting "Yamaha OPL3-SA soundcard not found or device
> busy" when I ran dmesg.) Then I ran it again with this output:
> [root@...:~]$ alsaconf
> Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-opl3sa2 snd-seq-dummy
> snd-seq- oss snd-seq-midi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-pcm-oss
> snd-mixer-oss snd-cs4231-lib snd-opl3-lib snd-usb-audio snd-usb-lib
> snd-hwdep snd-pcm snd-page-alloc snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi
> snd-timer snd-seq-device (failed: modules still loaded: snd-opl3-lib
> snd-cs4231-lib snd-hwdep snd-pcm snd-page-alloc snd-timer
> snd-seq-device).
> Building card database...
> Probing legacy cards.. This may take a few minutes..
> Probing: cs4236grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such
> file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
> grep: /sys/bus/pnp/devices/??:*/resources: No such file or directory
>
> : FOUND!!
>
> Running update-modules...
> Loading driver...
> FATAL: Error inserting snd_cs4236
> (/lib/modules/2.6.18-6-486/kernel/sound/isa/cs423x/snd-cs4236.ko): No
> such device
> FATAL: Error running install command for snd_cs4236
> Setting default volumes...
> amixer: Mixer attach default error: No such file or directory
> =====================================================================
>========== Now ALSA is ready to use.
> For adjustment of volumes, use your favorite mixer.
> Have a lot of fun!
> --------------------------------------
>
> Still no card listed in /proc/asound/cards.
> I can change back to the Startech card and test and report any errors
> with that card if that will help.
>
> Okay, a few questions:
> 1) Does anyone have a Startech or iMic USB sound card working so they
> can verify they do work with arecord so it's possible to read the
> sound stream?
> 2) Could the type of system I'm on (the embedded Soekris net5501) be
> creating the problems? Even though it does USB 2.0, could there
> still be a problem with a 700 Mhz CPU not being able to handle this?
> 3) Could having other devices on the USB hub cause this problem, even
> though I still had the same problems when I disconnected all the
> other devices?
> 4) Any ideas what I need to do to get a USB sound card (preferably
> one of these) working?
> 5) Does anyone have a USB sound card they can recommend that I can
> count on to work with Debian Etch?
>
> I guess that about summarizes the problem and the different ways I've
> thought of to solve it. I just am not sure how to get either of
> these cards behaving.
>
> Thanks for any help!
>
> Hal
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