Re: [AG-TECH] HD audio & USB audio on Linux?

[Christoph Willing <willing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 17/04/2008, at 7:34 AM, Andrew Ford wrote:

> The chips in these machines are the Realtek ALC885, or 882...  
> device manager says 882, but the Ubuntu sound preferences app and  
> RAT both see 885. From what I've gathered from some quick googling,  
> it looks like this one might be supported in 2.6.22, but I've seen  
> talk of mic input via ALSA not working. However, RAT doesn't see  
> ALSA at all in the audio devices list, just OSS. Should I bite the  
> bullet and upgrade to 8.04 just to see what happens?


Andrew,

ALSA is what is actually being used all the time. However ALSA  
includes an OSS compatibility layer which is why you see OSS as being  
available. We've always found that, for some weird reason, RAT's  
audio quality is better when you select OSS - even though this is  
really just ALSA pretending to be OSS.

Whether to upgrade to 8.04 depends on your local requirements. We've  
been using it here for testing and preparing AG packages in advance  
of 8.04's official release and its been working well for us so far.  
However its essentially a development machine rather than a  
production machine so your mileage may vary. Given the stability of  
the 8.04 beta (and also its release being only a week away), if I had  
your audio problem, I would upgrade just to see what happens.


chris


> On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Christoph Willing  
> <c.willing@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 17/04/2008, at 5:33 AM, Andrew Ford wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I can't get RAT to work with the integrated HD audio chipset in  
> some of our machines - listen works but talk doesn't. I was pretty  
> much expecting this running on Linux (Ubuntu 7.10), partially since  
> it's a known problem on Windows. I'm wondering if anyone has  
> actually gotten these chipsets to work on any platform (is there  
> any progress from SUMOVER as far as supporting them?)
>
>
> Andrew,
>
> The HD audio chipsets are something of a moving target and support  
> for a particular chipset depends on the kernel version. The kernel  
> version for 7.10 is 2.6.22-14. The release of Ubuntu 8.04 is  
> imminent (24th April, I believe) and it currently uses kernel  
> version 2.6.24-12 so many more chipsets will be supported. We have  
> at least one machine whose audio chipset is not fully supported by  
> 7.10 but already works correctly with 8.04 - maybe your chipset  
> will be in this category. The 8.04 beta is available via:
>  http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/beta
>
> AccessGrid packages for 8.04 are unofficially available at the  
> usual place - see the instructions for gutsy and replace "gutsy"  
> with "hardy".
>
>
> chris
>
>
>
> and if not, what USB audio interfaces work well with RAT on linux?  
> I've been looking at the Edirol UA-25 or 5, which are confirmed to  
> work with the usb-audio module but I don't know whether RAT  
> supports something like that. Anyone have any recommendations?
>
> --Andrew
>
> Christoph Willing                        +617 3365 8350
> QCIF Access Grid Manager
> University of Queensland

Christoph Willing                       +61 7 3365 8350
QCIF Access Grid Manager
University of Queensland