Audio

From openSUSE

Introduction to audio in Linux

ALSA

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) is a Linux kernel component intended to be a solution for audio support in linux.

Open Sound System (OSS)

The Open Sound System (OSS) is a standard interface for making and capturing sound in Unix operating systems. It is based on standard Unix devices (i.e. POSIX read, write, ioctl, etc.). The term also refers sometimes to the software in a Unix kernel that provides the OSS interface; in that sense it can be thought of as a device driver or collection of device drivers for sound controller hardware. The goal of OSS is to allow one to write a sound-based application program that works with any sound controller hardware, even though the hardware interface varies greatly from one type to another. OSS is distributed under three licence options, two of which are free software licences, thus making OSS free software.

Hardware Support

Out of the box openSUSE supports a lot of audio hardware. There are also several additional drivers that you can download if openSUSE does not support it. There is an extensive list of supported sound cards listed in HCL/Sound_Cards.

File Formats

Free File Formats

Proprietary File Formats

See article Restricted_Formats.

Applications

Players

Amarok

Amarok is an audio player designed for the KDE version of Linux. Currently in 1.46, its success is rising as it becomes included in many Linux Distros. In Opensuse, if you have used KDE for you desktop, you have amarok. To get updates and new versions, be sure to add Packman's repository. If you chose to download Amarok and install it manually, check Amarok's Homepage.

Mixers

KMix

KMix is KDE's soundcard mixer program. Though small, it is full-featured. The program should give controls for each of your soundcards.

KMix supports several platforms and sound drivers:

• The ALSA soundcard driver.
• All Open Sound System platforms. Explicitly tested are Linux®, FreeBSD, NetBSD and BSDI.
• Solaris™ based machines.
• IRIX® based machines.
• HP-UX® based machines.

If you have both ALSA and Open Sound System drivers installed, KMix will use the ALSA driver.

Troubleshooting

Adapter configured, but so sound

One of the known problems is not getting sound at all even though your card is supported. The problem is that sound is muted for sound cards that might present problem, ie. sound chip works fine with one implementation (manufacturer) and not correctly with another, producing all kind of annoying sounds.

One solution is to go to YaST Control Center, menu Hardware, select Sound and edit configuration. Look for button Other, click on it and you will see:

• Volume
• Start Sequencer
• Set as the Primary Card

Click on Volume and in the next window adjust and test volume.

This may solve the problem.