ALSA works fine - except the volume-controls

[iks]

Hi!

My problem in short terms: The soundcard produces (good) sound, but I cannot control the volume. The only thing I can do with alsamixer is muting the PCM-channel.

I am using kernel 2.6.8, alsa v1.0.9a and the internal soundcard of an asus K7S41 mobo (SiS7012 (says /proc/asound/cards) - uses intel8x0-module). First I had no asound.conf-files nowhere, now there's a global dmix-conf active. Makes no difference: still no control.

I have no ideas where to start. - You?

thnx
IKS

PS: I have found some hints that this problem is linked to the mobo...

[iks]

Hi again.... - I've played around with alsas softvol-plug and et voila: It doesn't work. Well - at least it refuses collaboration with the alsamixer, but it's seems to be good enough for mpd...

So I am confused, but quite happy with the situation.

Just in case someone has found this thread, I want to leave my conf-files here:

/etc/asound.conf

pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "svol"
}

pcm.svol {
    type softvol
    slave.pcm "hw:0,0"
    control {
        name "Volume"
    }
}

(I chose 'Volume' because 'Master' or 'PCM' resulted in alsamixer-segfaults...)


/etc/mpd.conf
*snipp*

# mixer
mixer_type              "alsa"
mixer_device            "dmix"

*snapp*

According to this conf-file, the complete asound.conf-stuff is irrelevant to the solution.

cya
IKS[/code]

[jimmyj]

Your .asoundrc worked perfectly for my onboard soundcard with Alsa-native programs. But, I am having problems with a program that does not support Alsa's mixer properly. I edited /proc/asound/card0/oss_mixer to map PCM to "Volume", but there is no effect on the volume of the audio. How can I fix this situation?

[spencerf]

it seems like the program you are describing is using OSS. You need to have OSS emulation enabled for that program to produce sound. OSS produces sound from /dev/dsp so if you don't have that you need to enable OSS in your kernel or from whatever configuration utility you use.

[jimmyj]

I am trying to use the binary of mythtv available for fedora core 4. It accepts ALSA:default for the audio, but when i try to set the mixer, it comes up with errors. I have been trying to get it to work with OSS emulation, but I have only been able to change the value of "Volume".

Using /dev/dsp as my audio device and /dev/mixer as my mixer, when I reduce the volume in mythtv (or xmms using the OSS drivers instead of alsa), Kmix shows that the value has been changed. But, the actual output to my speakers has not been modified in any way.

Is there any more information I should provide? How should I go about fixing this?

[CescoAiel]

Did you ever get this working?

[ingomueller.net]

Hi!

I had a similar problem one month ago and have spent a lot of time in its solution. As I stumbled upon this post, probably others will, so I'll post the link to a howto I wrote:

http://alsa.opensrc.org/How_to_use_s..._master_volume

I hope this helps someone...

Ingo