[pulseaudio-discuss] Alsa output devices, able to use alsa plugin?

[Ng Oon-Ee]

On Wed, 2009-08-26 at 17:33 +0800, Ng Oon-Ee wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-08-26 at 12:27 +0300, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> > ke, 2009-08-26 kello 16:48 +0800, Ng Oon-Ee kirjoitti:
> > > 
> > > pcm.test {
> > >   type plug
> > >   slave { pcm "hw:0,0" }
> > > }
> > > 
> > > Which should work, since it doesn't even do anything. I get the same
> > > error message trying to load it up though. Could somebody test this out
> > > (just have the above in your .asoundrc and try to use 'test' as the
> > > device for module-alsa-sink.
> > 
> > Indeed, it doesn't work. This is the log output:
> > 
> > D: alsa-util.c: Trying test with SND_PCM_NO_AUTO_FORMAT ...
> > D: alsa-util.c: Managed to open test
> > D: alsa-util.c: Maximum hw buffer size is 371 ms
> > I: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_hw_params_set_periods_near() failed: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole
> > I: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_hw_params_set_buffer_size_near() failed: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole
> > D: alsa-util.c: Trying test without SND_PCM_NO_AUTO_FORMAT ...
> > D: alsa-util.c: Managed to open test
> > D: alsa-util.c: Maximum hw buffer size is 371 ms
> > I: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_hw_params_set_periods_near() failed: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole
> > I: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_hw_params_set_buffer_size_near() failed: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole
> > D: alsa-util.c: Trying plug:test with SND_PCM_NO_AUTO_FORMAT ...
> > D: alsa-util.c: Managed to open plug:test
> > D: alsa-util.c: Maximum hw buffer size is 371 ms
> > I: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_hw_params_set_periods_near() failed: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole
> > I: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_hw_params_set_buffer_size_near() failed: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole
> > D: alsa-util.c: Trying plug:test without SND_PCM_NO_AUTO_FORMAT ...
> > D: alsa-util.c: Managed to open plug:test
> > D: alsa-util.c: Maximum hw buffer size is 371 ms
> > I: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_hw_params_set_periods_near() failed: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole
> > I: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_hw_params_set_buffer_size_near() failed: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole
> > I: alsa-util.c: Failed to set hardware parameters on plug:test: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole
> > E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-alsa-sink" (argument: "device=test"): initialization failed.
> > 
> > That "Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole" error means "No such file or
> > directory". I tried also with device=hw:0,0 and device=plughw:0,0 and
> > the first worked while the latter gave the same errors. Since the failed
> > function calls pertain to buffering, I also tried with tsched=0. It
> > worked. So, maybe this is a bug in the "plug" alsa plugin, ie. it
> > doesn't implement the *_near() functions properly.
> > 
> > Lennart, any insights?
> > 
> 
> Just to add a bit to this (nice thread here for Lennart to read when he
> wakes up, i think), I've seen oblique references to this being an issue
> with latest Alsa. Specifically there's this giant Pulseaudio with
> system-wide equalizer thread on ubuntuforums.org where the latests posts
> seem to indicate that the users of the latest versions of Ubuntu
> (Karmic, the current alpha/beta due October) aren't able to use the
> system-wide equalizer, which relies on the alsa ladspa plugin.
> 
> So it does seem as if there's something in latest alsa (.20?) which is
> causing this. If I have time over the weekend I may downgrade to .19 and
> see if that fixes it.
> 

Update: I tried downgrading alsa to .19 today, but couldn't due to a
large number of packages on my distro (Arch) which depend on .20
(gstreamer, libcanberra, the works). So no new information as of yet.