Hello, I was wondering if people might care to comment on their experiences with soundcards and linux support. I have a Pentium III Coppermine on a motherboard with an onboard sound card. lspci> Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 21) To date the sound card has worked fine playing ogg files and mp3's. However, where it seems to struggle is with programs like Skype and Openwengo, two VOIP applications. I believe it has something to do with operating in full duplex ie it can't record and play at the same time (I don't have Windows to test this theory) and/or the state of Alsa support for the card is such hardware mixing (which I don't think the card supports) is the only viable option for using these programs I was wondering if people might be able to recommend a PCI sound card that is well supported by/for Linux.
On Mon, May 08, 2006 at 09:52:14PM +1200, Chris O'Halloran wrote:
To date the sound card has worked fine playing ogg files and mp3's.
However, where it seems to struggle is with programs like Skype and Openwengo, two VOIP applications. I believe it has something to do with operating in full duplex ie it can't record and play at the same time (I don't have Windows to test this theory) and/or the state of Alsa support for the card is such hardware mixing (which I don't think the card supports) is the only viable option for using these programs
Cards that do hardware mixing (when supported by the driver) makes life much easier. I have a similar problem with skype, although the problem is that skype uses the older OSS (/dev/dsp) sound API instead of ALSA, so you can't have alsa apps and skype using the sound card at the same time (unless there is hardware mixing, which allows multiple apps to open the device at the same time). Under recent ubuntu releases (and presumably other distros), multiple ALSA apps can use the soundcard at the same time with software mixing. (This is what esd tries to do, except it doesn't work with non-esd apps). The SB Live is/was a good card under linux for hardware mixing, although I don't know if they're still sold anymore. John
There are good drivers for the Audigy on Linux if I recall correctly. Creative support Linux quite well with Open Source drivers. http://opensource.creative.com/ Regards
Cards that do hardware mixing (when supported by the driver) makes life much easier. I have a similar problem with skype, although the problem is that skype uses the older OSS (/dev/dsp) sound API instead of ALSA, so you can't have alsa apps and skype using the sound card at the same time (unless there is hardware mixing, which allows multiple apps to open the device at the same time).
Under recent ubuntu releases (and presumably other distros), multiple ALSA apps can use the soundcard at the same time with software mixing. (This is what esd tries to do, except it doesn't work with non-esd apps).
The SB Live is/was a good card under linux for hardware mixing, although I don't know if they're still sold anymore.
John
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On Mon, 2006-05-08 at 20:20 +1000, Oliver Jones wrote:
There are good drivers for the Audigy on Linux if I recall correctly. Creative support Linux quite well with Open Source drivers.
Make sure you get the right Audigy though. The high-end, decent version is supported, but the crappy low-end one (the LS?) won't work in Ubuntu last I checked (I was a cheapskate, and suffered for it).
Like their website says, check the ALSA device matrix for supported cards. Their really new cards aren't supported yet as they are a completely new architecture. And yes the Audigy support is lacking in some areas. Regards Dominic Tennant wrote:
On Mon, 2006-05-08 at 20:20 +1000, Oliver Jones wrote:
There are good drivers for the Audigy on Linux if I recall correctly. Creative support Linux quite well with Open Source drivers.
Make sure you get the right Audigy though. The high-end, decent version is supported, but the crappy low-end one (the LS?) won't work in Ubuntu last I checked (I was a cheapskate, and suffered for it).
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Thanks for all the replies. I still haven't bought a sound card yet. I was following up the Audigy 2 but today discovered the Audigy2 have infact coverted from using the emu10k chipset/driver to the ca0106 chipset. This chipset isn't as well supported by the driver and chatting on the alsa irc channel endorsed my conclusion not to go with this chipset. The card that I think holds promise is the YamahaYMF744 sold as the Xwave "Elite Value....." by PC Gear. I am sure other do to. I've mnaged to download lots of information about the chipset and it seems like Yamaha made the specifications quite open. I am hoping this tranlates to a comprehensive GPL driver but I'd be interested to hear others experience. I am not adverse to spending $200 on a card if it does everything I want well. I nearly walked away with a Audigy 2 (~$75) today before deciding to be more thorough in my investigation. It seems it wouldn't have been money well spent. The M-Audio Revolution 7.1 looks quite good and it seems to be well supported. Except a person on the alsa irc channel said it wouldn't do hardware mixing :( Maybe I just have to way until www.openwengo.com fully converts to alsa before things will work smoothly. Cheers On 08/05/06, Dominic Tennant <bnonn(a)orcon.net.nz> wrote:
On Mon, 2006-05-08 at 20:20 +1000, Oliver Jones wrote:
There are good drivers for the Audigy on Linux if I recall correctly. Creative support Linux quite well with Open Source drivers.
Make sure you get the right Audigy though. The high-end, decent version is supported, but the crappy low-end one (the LS?) won't work in Ubuntu last I checked (I was a cheapskate, and suffered for it).
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On 5/8/06, John R. McPherson <jrm21(a)cs.waikato.ac.nz> wrote:
The SB Live is/was a good card under linux for hardware mixing, although I don't know if they're still sold anymore.
I had an SB Live (and yes, they are still sold, check pricespy.co.nz). The problem I could not solve is that the rear channels never sounded right. They were very quiet, and if I adjusted the volume of the rear channels, they just sounded very tinny. I probably did weeks worth of research in total, but coul never get the sound to the quality that I had when using the same card/speaker set under Windows, unfortunately. I didn't find many other mentions of the problem on the net though, so it may have just been a certain revision of the SBLive, or something else equally weird. Joseph.
participants (5)
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Chris O'Halloran -
Dominic Tennant -
John R. McPherson -
Joseph Gibbs -
Oliver Jones