[pulseaudio-discuss] ALSA plugin "device" parameter

[Peter Nagy]

Hi,

Ok I see what you mean.
But how could it happen that when I'm using native pulseaudio for
example with gstreamer then the output goes to sound_card0 but when
I'm using it through alsa-lib -> alsa-pulse plugin -> pulse then
output goes to sound_card1
If I turn off HAL detection and determine devices statically with
module-alsa-sink then I can manage to load my preferred sound card
first and alsa-pulse plugin will use that sound card regardless what
is in the /etc/pulse config files
There must be some reason of the presence of that device parameter int
the asound.conf
Or is it deprecated?

Thanks
Peter



2009/3/9 Sean McNamara <smcnam at gmail.com>:
> Peter,
>
> On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 1:39 PM, Peter Nagy <nagper at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have problems setting up my asound.conf.
>> Namely that I want to tell the alsa-pulse plugin which pulseaudio
>> device to use (I have 2 sound cards).
>>
>> There is a nice short explanation in the plugin's README-pulse file:
>>
>> ---------------------------------
>> "PulseAudio <--> ALSA plugins
>> ============================
>>
>> This plugin allows any program that uses the ALSA API to access a PulseAudio
>> sound daemon. In other words, native ALSA applications can play and record
>> sound across a network.
>>
>> There are two plugins in the suite, one for PCM and one for mixer control. A
>> typical configuration will look like:
>>
>>    pcm.pulse {
>>        type pulse
>>    }
>>
>>    ctl.pulse {
>>        type pulse
>>    }
>>
>> Put the above in ~/.asoundrc, or /etc/asound.conf, and use "pulse" as device
>> in your ALSA applications. For example:
>>
>>    % aplay -Dpulse foo.wav
>>    % amixer -Dpulse
>>
>> PulseAudio will accept more or less any format you throw at it. So a plug
>> wrapper is unnecessary. Mixing is also handled so dmix will only cause a
>> performance hit without any gain.
>>
>> The plugins will respect your PulseAudio environment variables (like
>> PULSE_SERVER), but you can override these in ALSA's configuration files.
>>
>> Both plugins accept the "server" parameter, specifying which PulseAudio server
>> to contact. Both also accept the "device" parameter, which indicate which
>> source and sink to use.
>>
>> The mixer control plugin also accepts the parameters "source" and "sink" for
>> when you need to specify a sink/source combination with different names. If
>> you need to do this with PCM:s then specify two PCM:s with different "device".
>>
>> If you do not specify any source and/or sink, then the server's defaults will
>> be used."
>> ---------------------------------
>>
>> So what should I write in the asound.conf after the device parameter?
>> It should be the name of the pulseaudio device what I want pulseaudio to use.
>> It it the name of the sink? Or the alsa device name (hw:0,0)
>> Is it a string parameter? Or string?
>> for example:
>>
>>    pcm.pulse {
>>        type pulse
>>        device "alsa_output.hw_0_0"
>
> No... Bad. PulseAudio determines which audio device to use by setting
> up files in /etc/pulse/ (such as default.pa). You don't tell Pulse
> which audio device to use here.
>
> If you have module-hal-detect loaded (any popular distro is extremely
> likely to ship PulseAudio with this loaded and working; the default.pa
> in the sources also turns it on by default) then PulseAudio will
> already be aware of all of your ALSA devices, or it really should.
>
> You can select which device to use with `pavucontrol` at runtime.
>
> You don't want to have a "device" parameter to the ALSA<->pulse plugin
> at all. None is needed in asound.conf or .asoundrc.
>
>
>>    }
>>
>>    ctl.pulse {
>>        type pulse
>>        device "alsa_output.hw_0_0"
>>    }
>>
>> I've tried a few things with no success.
>>
>>
>> Thanks for any help.
>>
>> Peter
>> _______________________________________________
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>> pulseaudio-discuss at mail.0pointer.de
>> https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/pulseaudio-discuss
>>
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