[Pkg-alsa-devel] Bug#491196: libasound2: Can't set my USB sound card as default

[Laurent Raufaste]

Package: libasound2
Version: 1.0.16-2
Severity: normal


Hi,

I have a system with 3 audio devices:

$ cat /proc/asound/cards 
 0 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                      HDA NVidia at 0xfe024000 irq 23
 1 [Xmod           ]: USB-Audio - Creative Xmod
                      Creative Technology Ltd Creative Xmod at usb-0000:00:0b.0-5, full speed
 2 [HDMI           ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
                      HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfddfc000 irq 16

I want to use the USB one (Xmod) as my main audio device but setting it as the default in my .asoundrc does not work:

$ asoundconf list
Names of available sound cards:
NVidia
Xmod
HDMI

$ asoundconf set-default-card Xmod

It results in ALSA apps unable to find the PCM:

$ aplay
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1286:(snd_func_refer) Unable to find definition 'defaults.pcm.dmix.device'
ALSA lib conf.c:3513:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib conf.c:3985:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2144:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
aplay: main:564: audio open error: No such file or directory

But alsamixer display the USB Xmod as default, so it's working for the ctl not for the pcm.

Another different try: if I set the content of .asoundrc to:

pcm.!default {
    type hw
    card 1
}
ctl.!default {
    type hw
    card 1
}

The sound goes to the last card (HDMI) but the ctl goes to the USB Xmod. As if it couldn't switch the pcm to the Xmod and switched to the next one.

Finally, I get sound on my USB Xmod by removing any .asoundrc and changing the following lines in /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf :

From:
defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0
To:
defaults.ctl.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1

Why can't I set my default card with .asoundrc ?

Thanks for looking into it =)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.25-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages libasound2 depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.7-10     GNU C Library: Shared libraries

libasound2 recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information