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HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 9:18 pm
by larz
Just a word of warning and a workaround for those who want to upgrade/install ubuntu 11.04 and who owns a RME HDSP card. The alsa-tools-gui package is broken and the HDSP mixer is missing from the install of said package.

There's an "easy" workaround though. Install the Debian Sid package instead - and remember to lock it, otherwise it will upgrade to the broken ubuntu package.
Afterwards you can join the bug-report here (I've posted the links for the debian package needed in comment #14): https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/723276

I don't know if this also is the case in ubuntu-studio as I just installed from the standard ubuntu CD.

Also, I don't know if this is the case if you upgrade from ubuntu to kxstudio.

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 6:51 pm
by bearblock
hi

I'm also trying to get an RME HDSP working in Natty Narwhal. No devices are listed under Sound Properties > Hardware, but when I run aplay -l in the terminal I can see my card. Is this due to the lack of hdspmixer or is this a different problem?

in the bug report, it says that alsa-tools needs to be rebuilt, but from a previous version. could someone please post the terminal commands that will do this?

I'm trying to learn more about Linux in general but I'd like to be able to listen to music while I do so :)

thanks

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 11:39 am
by larz
What OS are you running?
Did you install alsa-firmware-loaders?
Did you install alsa-tools-gui.
You also will have to start hdspmixer, which you'll have install if you install the packages mentioned above.
And you will probably have to fiddle with the settings in hdspmixer - you can start by trying the presets.

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:59 pm
by bearblock
What OS are you running?
Ubuntu 11.04
Did you install alsa-firmware-loaders?
Did you install alsa-tools-gui.
I've run sudo apt-get install alsa-firmware-loaders and sudo apt-get install alsa-tools-gui at the console, both of which seemed to do their thing without any errors.
You also will have to start hdspmixer, which you'll have install if you install the packages mentioned above.
hdspmixer: command not found

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:54 am
by larz
Exactly. Then you have the problem I described in my first post.
See comment #14 in this bug report:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/723276
You will have to know if you're running 32 or 64 bit to get the right package.
If you're not sure, you can check it by running:

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uname -a
When you've downloaded the correct file, open a terminal, cd to the right dir, and install with:

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sudo dpkg -i nameOfFile
Following that it should be possible to hold the package (so it doesn't automatically update to the later version with:

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sudo aptitude hold alsa-tools-gui

Maybe you want hdspmixer to start up automatically when it all works. Then you should make a startup script with something like this:

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#!/bin/sh
hdsploader
hdspmixer & sleep 3 && killall hdspmixer

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 6:29 pm
by bearblock
Ok cool, so now I can run the hdspmixer - but still no sound. When I run pacmd list it reports no cards found. It looks like ALSA is detecting the card, but PulseAudio isn't.

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:36 pm
by larz
Sorry bearblock. I forgot all about this.

There is one more thing you have to do.

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gksu gedit /etc/pulse/default.pa
Find where it says

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Load audio drivers statically... bla bla...
In that text block you should add 2 lines:

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load-module module-alsa-sink device_id=0 tsched=0
load-module module-alsa-source device_id=0 tsched=0
Save and reboot.
Now fiddle with the hdspmixer again to see if you can get some sound.

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:57 pm
by bearblock
Ok we have sound! There are a few minor snags (hdspmixer faders don't do anything, pulseaudio channel mapping seems a bit weird) but for my purposes it will do nicely. Many thanks for all the help larz :D

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:57 am
by larz
Nice :)
How well do you know the hdspmixer? At least for me that was a problem in the beginning. I thought the same as you until I found out what the different sliders were actually for. And a lot of them, in my case, were just for ins/outs that I weren't connected, so naturally they had no effect.
You can however remap stuff. I think you can find the mixer manual on RME's site. Just play around with it.
But I'm happy you have sound.

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 9:16 pm
by larz
What a sad waste of computer power...

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 2:21 pm
by bearblock
hi, me again with a mute ubuntu :(

i installed some updates when prompted by the ubuntu software centre, including pulseaudio from 1:0.9.22+stable-queue-24-g67d18-0ubuntu3 to 1:0.9.22+stable-queue-24-g67d18-0ubuntu3.1. now the volume control icon in the system tray has disappeared, and i get a new error when running pulseaudio from the terminal:

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E: module-alsa-card.c: Failed to find a working profile.
E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-alsa-card" (argument: "device_id="0" name="pci-0000_08_01.0" card_name="alsa_card.pci-0000_08_01.0" tsched=yes ignore_dB=no card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1""): initialization failed.
I tried commenting out the two lines i previously added to default.pa, but that doesn't seem to make much difference.

Then i tried going back to the old pulseaudio version:

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sudo apt-get install pulseaudio=1:0.9.22+stable-queue-24-g67d18-0ubuntu3
and i get this error:

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The following packages have unmet dependencies.
 pulseaudio : Depends: libpulse0 (= 1:0.9.22+stable-queue-24-g67d18-0ubuntu3) but 1:0.9.22+stable-queue-24-g67d18-0ubuntu3.1 is to be installed
E: Broken packages
any ideas?

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 5:20 pm
by larz
Did anything happen to the changes we made in the configuration file as per post #12?

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 6:24 pm
by bearblock
post 12? do you mean these:

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load-module module-alsa-sink device_id=0 tsched=0
load-module module-alsa-source device_id=0 tsched=0
i've tried it both with and without those lines in the config - same error either way.

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 2:01 am
by larz
Sorry yes, that's what I meant. Anyway the 2 lines have to be there or it will not work.

I don't know. We know it worked before. So we will have to find out what has changed. Try to open ubuntu-software-center and look in "history" and see if you can find anything else that changed with in that update. Did it update to the standard (not working) ubuntu 11.04 version of alsa-tools-gui?

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apt-cache policy alsa-tools-gui
I can't get to my desktop for the moment (I'm not at home the next few weeks) so I can't tell you if that pulseaudio update is installed in my computer, but I think it is, and I have not experienced any problems.

Re: HDSPmixer missing in ubuntu 11.04 - a fix

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2011 4:03 pm
by bearblock
hi, asla-tools-gui is at 1.0.23-5 and the two lines are in default.pa - still nothing.

there were plenty of other packages upgraded at the same time - probably a few hundred. I've had a look through the list and I can't see anything that looks suspicious except pulseaudio from ubuntu3 to ubuntu3.1. I don't really know what I'm looking for though to be honest - i just searched for the strings 'audio', 'alsa', 'sound', 'snd' and so on...

edit: I installed qmmp which can play direct to alsa, without needing a working pulseaudio, so I can still listen to music :D