[PlanetCCRMA] The el cheapo myth

[Fernando Pablo Lopez-Lezcano]

On Fri, 2004-09-24 at 18:31, Timo Sivula wrote:
> b) However, to test the system first one needs to get multiple
> soundcards to work under linux simultaneously. I am not especially good
> with the Linux configuration files, or software in general, and this has
> proven difficult for me. This problem has been explained at planet ccrma
> at
> http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/installkernelandsound.html#SECTION00023400000000000000 and http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=TwoCardsAsOne and I have tried to create the needed files according to these pieces of advice, to no avail. My problem starts with configuring the alsa modules to get all cards to work at once. I have not been able to get the cards to work after I modified modules.conf. With the alsaconf generated modules.conf only one card is available at once.  
> 
> Here is my modules.conf section on the cards which does not work. I get
> no sound at all with this file. I am trying to get three cards to work
> first, as I need one PCI slot for my wlan card: 

I assume that one card alone works fine, right?

> # --- ALSA configuration
> alias char-major-116 snd
> alias char-major-14 soundcore
> alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1370
> alias snd-card-1 snd-ens1370
> alias snd-card-2 snd-ens1370
> #alias snd-card-3 snd-ens1370
> # 1st card
> #-- OSS compatibility alias
> alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
> alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
> alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
> alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
> alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
> alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
> # 2nd card
> #-- OSS compatibility alias
> alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
> alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss

You don't need the snd-seq-oss aliases for the second and third cards,
there's only one sequencer for all of them. 

> 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
> # 3rd card
> #-- OSS compatibility alias
> alias sound-slot-2 snd-card-2
> alias sound-service-2-0 snd-mixer-oss
> alias sound-service-2-1 snd-seq-oss
> alias sound-service-2-3 snd-pcm-oss
> alias sound-service-2-8 snd-seq-oss
> alias sound-service-2-12 snd-pcm-oss
> ## 4th card
> ##-- OSS compatibility alias
> #alias sound-slot-3 snd-card-3
> #alias sound-service-3-0 snd-mixer-oss
> #alias sound-service-3-1 snd-seq-oss
> #alias sound-service-3-3 snd-pcm-oss
> #alias sound-service-3-8 snd-seq-oss
> #alias sound-service-3-12 snd-pcm-oss
> #-- Options
> options snd major=116 cards_limit=3 device_mode=0666 device_gid=0
> device_uid=0 
> options snd-ens1370 index=0 
> options snd-ens1370 index=1 
> options snd-ens1370 index=2 
> #options snd-ens1370 index=3 
> # -- Keep modules from being autocleaned
> add options -k snd-card-0
> add options -k snd-card-1
> add options -k snd-card-2
> #add options -k snd-card-3
> #--- ALSA configuration END
> 
> What could be wrong here? 

The modules.conf stuff looks fine to me. What happens when you start
alsa? What messages get printed to /var/log/messages? What does
/bin/lsmod say after you have started alsa? If you don't have any errors
and the modules load fine, have you run alsamixer on all cards?
("alsamixer -c 1" for the second, and so on and so forth). 

> Any interest out there on the planet for this kind of a project?

Probably not much as there are reasonably priced multiple channel
soundcards out there. 

Also, some of the snd137x cards have an extra stereo output, so you
could get four channels from each card (if your cards can do that). 

-- Fernando