Audio, the SheevaPlug and the Linux distros

[rec9140]

I am interested to find out which USB audio modules others are using... I am in particular interested in experiences with audio capture with USB module with LINE IN inputs.

The Ubunutu 9.04 distro that is available does it have the required USB audio support compiled? Another version that has this pre-compiled?

I've tried to follow some links about USB audio and a device called the The Link Box, but this all goes back to a generic SF page, and the content doesn't appear to be online any longer.

What USB audio modules work with the ShevaPlug and the Ubuntu 9.04 Sheva Distro?

Any experience with use of the DarkIce or worse case Ices 2.0, prefer the DarkIce since it supports Ogg & MP3 if compiled correctly.

[Doug Grove]

I have a cheapo USB sound card running:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4115644&CatId=4261

My lsmod shows:

snd_usb_audio          62198  0
snd_pcm                64636  1 snd_usb_audio
snd_page_alloc          4991  1 snd_pcm
snd_usb_lib            15682  1 snd_usb_audio
snd_hwdep               5265  1 snd_usb_audio
snd_seq_midi            4530  0
snd_rawmidi            17265  2 snd_usb_lib,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event      5214  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                50529  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer              18437  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device          5207  3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd                    38097  7 snd_usb_audio,snd_pcm,snd_hwdep,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore                702  1 snd

I am using the 2.6.32.2 kernel and associated modules.

This works with the Alsa sound system.  I run MP3, Flac, etc through MPD. 

Hope that helps,

Doug

[pingtoo]

Hi Doug,

Can you identify you usb sound device driver? I am trying to design my system, I have setup everything as module but when it come to sound driver I am not sure which one I should include. so if you can show me which usb sound driver was used by your device I will know that I should include it in my build list.


Thanks.

[birdman]

This works with the Alsa sound system.  I run MP3, Flac, etc through MPD. 

I've sort-of got that working.  However - it's very quiet.  How do you configure ALSA?

[Doug Grove]

As to the sound device driver, as I said before, I'm just using the modules that came with the kernel.  Output from my 'lsmod' is shown above.  Past that, I have:

usb 1-1.4.4: new full speed USB device using orion-ehci and address 7
usb 1-1.4.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
input: USB Sound Device         as /devices/platform/orion-ehci.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.4/1-1.4.4/1-1.4.4:1.3/input/input0
generic-usb 0003:0D8C:0102.0001: input: USB HID v1.00 Device [USB Sound Device        ] on usb-orion-ehci.0-1.4.4/input3

In my 'dmesg' output.  Is there anything else that I can give that would help?

Doug

[Doug Grove]

As to sound being very quite - have installed and tried alsamixer?

[pingtoo]

As to the sound device driver, as I said before, I'm just using the modules that came with the kernel.  Output from my 'lsmod' is shown above.  Past that, I have:

usb 1-1.4.4: new full speed USB device using orion-ehci and address 7
usb 1-1.4.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
input: USB Sound Device         as /devices/platform/orion-ehci.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.4/1-1.4.4/1-1.4.4:1.3/input/input0
generic-usb 0003:0D8C:0102.0001: input: USB HID v1.00 Device [USB Sound Device        ] on usb-orion-ehci.0-1.4.4/input3

In my 'dmesg' output.  Is there anything else that I can give that would help?

Doug

May be there isn't any driver need for a usb sound device.  Thank you very much.

[birdman]

As to sound being very quite - have installed and tried alsamixer?

Yes.
The problems I had were:

• The device show up as sound device 1, but alsa defaults to 0, so I needed to specify the device on the commands
• Running alsactl init 1 made it complain about being unable to parse "-20db" in the file /usr/share/alsa/init/default

I edited the fiel to change -20dB to -20, which at least made the error go away.  I then tried using mpc/mpd.  No errors reported.  It seemed to be working.  then I heard some music - very faint.  If I pressed my ear against the speaker I could make out the sound.
So then alsamixer fired was fired up and I found the volume at 0.  Setting it to 75 fixed things.
I tried to save the state (alsactl store 1) but it still started up again on 0 volume.  So I edited the /var/lib/alsa/asound.state fiel by hand to set the value.0 and value.1 parameters for the Speaker Playback Volume to be 30 (of range 0-44) rather than 0.
All is now OK.
I can use alsaplayer, and now have mplayer running.

[rec9140]

I am interested in using something like:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170462926828&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

These are all over ebay.. and I would like to keep the profile as small as possible, which is why I looked at some OMAP boards, but there becomes an issue with floating point support for the various encoder libs.

Audio output to speakers/line out ie: sound out is pretty much the least of my concern, and actually probably would never be used as the goal is for this to be low profile and stuck at various remote locations connected to various input sources.

Audio IN via mic/line input -> DarkIce -> IceCast is the goal preferably in either OGG or MP3 formats as configured by the user.

It appears that the various libs that do this like LAME twolame etc. are all floating point based.

Any one used any of these with a Plug?

Any one used DarkIce with a Plug?

Comments? Thanks....

[obarthelemy]

I don't know about specifics, but I had the worse issues trying to make a sound card work through a USB hub. In the end I had to plug it directly. Did someone manage to get it to work on a hub ? Which hub ?

Thanks !

[birdman]

Did someone manage to get it to work on a hub ? Which hub ?

I got one working through a (powered) hub.  It was a 4-port Belkin one, which uses an NEC chipset.

[obarthelemy]

thanks

[Brandt]

Any tutorials on this?

I'm getting complete garble/distortion with my "3D Sound" USB audio adapter. It works on my Synology NAS...

[Ira]

So I decided to open it up see if I could improve it and did they really remove the heat spreader when they installed the fan as mine seems to have no heat spreader?

Ira

[bedek]

Any tutorials on this?

I'm getting complete garble/distortion with my "3D Sound" USB audio adapter. It works on my Synology NAS...

Hi,

I've exactly this same problem - did you solved it ?

Regards.