Changing alsa output

[Russo017]

i use a CVS alsa driver. I use rhythmbox. The sound often crackles. This is often attributed to the poor cvs alsa-driver however it can be fixed by emulating OSS or changing the bitrate/bufrate. Now... if i were to go from alsa emulation to oss emulation... where would i set that? Is it an alsa "global" setting? Or a rhythmbox setting? I also get sound to crackle in xine so that is why i believe it is driver related only. However changing the output could fix this...

My hardware ASUS z71v... azalia realtek alc880 sound (snd-hda-intel)

Thanks!

Dmitry

[jaboua]

Why would you like to emulate OSS? Just recompile your kernel without alsa, with only OSS.

[Russo017]

Because i have a laptop with a very very new soundchip. Its thus, poorly supported. I mean the problem is actually specifically with my laptop model. OSS will not see the chip. Or i dont think it will. My laptop has been out for less than 4 months i think. Anyway thats the reason. I dont have alsa built into the kernel. I build it externally and load it in. And again it is a cvs version of alsa.

Dmitry

[Ethyriel]

It isn't listed in the OSS compatability list?

OSS is still under development, it's just deprecated in the Linux kernel in favor of ALSA. It's still used in BSD and UNIX, and by some Linux users. So I'm not sure, but there must be some way to patch in current support. I didn't bother reading them, but here are the install instructions.

Have you looked in gconf to see if you can configure the sound device to use? Or you could always switch to a more configurable media player like MPD that let's you configure everything down to the channel the volume control handles, rather than disallowing your management of the most fundamental functions.

Good luck

[Russo017]

I will look at gconf. However i use rhythmbox specifically because my folders are organized by itunes. I use xine cuz its easy. Anyway, I'll look at it later. But getting back to this... I will quote the website as to which i am getting information from...here

...Many programs have lots of clicking in their output. This appears to be related to the audio interfaces fixed 48KHz sampling rate. For programs that don't work properly try switching between the ALSA API to the older OSS API (emulated by ALSA) or visa versa or different sampling rates or channels if possible.

I'm sorry its just i'm not used to ALSA. Or linux for that matter I've only been using it for a month or so . I mean i guess i should just wait a lilttle bit... Maybe wait for some new drivers. It is very frustrating. But i'm determined. I just noticed that the cvs drivers crash on almost everything. Giam even. Sometimes rhythmbox. I want to see if changing the output makes a difference though. Anyway... i hope this helped you all understand.

Also, can some explain the difference between ALSA and OSS does it provide better support? in terms of hardware? I logged onto their site... and looked around. They support my chip... but do they support the specific modifications for my laptop... because that ofcourse is my main problem.

[jaboua]

Actually there is an kernel option for emulating OSS in alsa, notised now: Try recompiling the kernel with this enabled and switch to OSS-drivers in apps...