Multi-room Audio - a tad confused

[b4rney]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the info. Could it be that the device is better supported under 10.10 kernel? As mentioned it is not listed under aplay -l or squeezeslave -L in lmce 0810 despite appearing in lsusb.

Just a thought .... should I have the module snd-usb-audio. I can't find it.
Regards
Barney

[b4rney]

Just tried the usb soundcard in my ubuntu laptop (10.04).

Once attached it appears in lsusb and aplay and the snd-usb-audio module magically appears. This doesn't happen on my 0810 core.

[totallymaxed]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the info. Could it be that the device is better supported under 10.10 kernel? As mentioned it is not listed under aplay -l or squeezeslave -L in lmce 0810 despite appearing in lsusb.

Just a thought .... should I have the module snd-usb-audio. I can't find it.
Regards
Barney

No its not your Kernel... you need to update alsa to 1.0.22.1 or 1.0.23 in that case;

http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Main_Page

All the best


Andrew

[gurumaia]

Got this one from ebay.co.uk:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180614238216

This DOES NOT work (see the previous comments). There are a lot of similar branded items and it is hard to distinguish between them so an HCL might prove difficult.

I think it is a good idea to create an HCL if the product is easily identifiable.
Barney

Yeah, I think it would be a little hard, but it's doable. In this case for example, if proven that your device doesn't work, we could say that sound cards using the cmedia chipset are not supported.
I hope you get it working (it seems totallymaxed has some good insights on how to get it to work).

[b4rney]

Already at 1.0.23.
There are conflicts in dmesg but I am moving this discussion to the thread linked below.

cat /proc/asound/version

Code: [Select]

root@dcerouter:~# cat /proc/asound/version
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Compiled on May 24 2010 for kernel 2.6.27-17-generic (SMP).
root@dcerouter:~#

Moving this discussion to a more similar thread from last year:

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=10268.msg79043#msg79043
Sorry for the hijack.
Barney

[b4rney]

OK. Got the usb card recognised by downgrading alsa , but now having problems with squeezeslave .

Following the wiki I wasn't sure where to attach the squeezeslave to. My core is in the kitchen with the usb soundcard attached. Should my squeezebox player be assigned to this room? The entertain area is the bathroom (just speakers).

Here is my output from squeezeslave -L with some errors:

Code: [Select]

root@dcerouter:~# squeezeslave -L
Expression 'snd_pcm_hw_params_set_buffer_size_near( pcm, hwParams, &lowLatency )' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 415
Expression 'snd_pcm_hw_params_set_buffer_size_near( pcm, hwParams, &lowLatency )' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 415
Expression 'snd_pcm_hw_params_set_buffer_size_near( pcm, hwParams, &lowLatency )' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 415
Output devices:
* 0: (ALSA) HDA NVidia: ALC888 Analog (hw:0,0) (11/46)
  1: (ALSA) HDA NVidia: ALC888 Digital (hw:0,1) (11/46)
  4: (ALSA) front (11/46)
  5: (ALSA) surround40 (11/46)
  6: (ALSA) surround41 (11/46)
  7: (ALSA) surround50 (11/46)
  8: (ALSA) surround51 (11/46)
  9: (ALSA) surround71 (11/46)
 10: (ALSA) iec958 (11/46)
 11: (ALSA) spdif (11/46)
 13: (ALSA) asym_analog (42/46)
 14: (ALSA) dmix (42/42)
root@dcerouter:~#


[rperre]

Put it in the Bathroom, it's seen as a "separate" device for lmce

I would try 14, 13 or 4 in that order

Richard

[b4rney]

Thanks Richard, I know you had these problems yourself.

That squeezebox -L command was executed after I'd launched squeezeslave with device 3 (c-media usb sound card) and it is no longer on the list. It was there before added the command to rc.local and restarted.

Also, how does the core know where the usb soundcard is if I assign it to the bathroom?

Any ideas?
Barney

[buckle]

It will know because it registers to the Squeeze server with the MAC address used when launching the squeezeslave (-m).

You add the squeeze device to LinuxMCE and set it with the appropriate MAC address device data.

[rperre]

b4rney don't worry to much on how it does it, just follow the wiki. it will basically assign the squeezelave to that bathroom as an "md" (sorta) so you can control it with the orbiters. Just change rooms to the bathroom and control the audio played.

Sorry to see you are having problems with this, don't give up though.

Richard

[b4rney]

Thanks guys.

Trying again now. Assigned squeezebox player to bathroom.

Barney

[b4rney]

Working! 

Just need to configure my zone2 on my Denon 2310 located with the core. LMCE constantly surprises me. Thank you for this thread or I might never have known about this solution. Simply awesome!

FYI the cheaper ebay usb sound card works just as well as the more expensive version I got from amazon. Both are c-media devices.

Barney

[totallymaxed]

Working! 

Just need to configure my zone2 on my Denon 2310 located with the core. LMCE constantly surprises me. Thank you for this thread or I might never have known about this solution. Simply awesome!

FYI the cheaper ebay usb sound card works just as well as the more expensive version I got from amazon. Both are c-media devices.

Barney

Barney,

Great :-)

One thing to be aware of is that if you reboot your Core (or MD if thats where your sound card is) your USB sound card will likely come up with a different device id and this will need to be corrected before it will function again. Its easy to correct but a pain. In Dianemo we have some code that manages the sound cards but because our Squeezeslave implementation uses Dianemo style devices this has not been incorporated into the LinuxMCE builds yet as far as I know (I could be wrong though about that).

Anyway its great you got everything working - now you can have some fun actually doing some cool things with it :-)

All the best


Andrew

[b4rney]

Thanks Andrew,

Did a restart this morning and it was still OK but will keep an eye on it.

Need to spend some time to integrate it fully ... but as of now I have my core providing zone 2 sound using my n800. I'm impressed that mute and vol-up, vol-down work ... presumably using alsa.

Many thanks to everyone involved.
Barney

[rperre]

good to see you got it working, if you have any comments and/or additions for the wiki, please put them in.

Richard