[Pkg-alsa-devel] alsa-utils: aplay: Swap help-text for "--list-devices" and "--list-pcms" options

[Sedat Dilek]

Hi,

I fell over a strange problem on my Debian/unstable system using
KDE/Plasma with pulseaudio - no audio playback device.

As I have two devices for my Intel HDA PCH, I checked if HDMI audio is
loaded or used wrong.

After playing with "set-card-profile" option in /etc/pulse/default.pa...

...I think the help text for aplay is mixed here:

-l, --list-devices      list all soundcards and digital audio devices
-L, --list-pcms         list device names

Please, see "PCM (digital audio) interface" website on
<www.alsa-project.org> (and my diff below).

As strange it came in - it's gone by restoring all configuration files.

Thanks.

Regards,
- Sedat -

[1] https://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/pcm.html
[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Examples

P.S.: My diff against /etc/pulse/default.pa

root at iniza:~# diff -uprN /etc/pulse/default.pa /etc/pulse/default.pa.dileks
--- /etc/pulse/default.pa       2019-08-15 17:21:19.000000000 +0200
+++ /etc/pulse/default.pa.dileks        2020-10-10 15:29:43.835366256 +0200
@@ -139,3 +139,31 @@ load-module module-filter-apply
### Make some devices default
#set-default-sink output
#set-default-source input
+
+### Explicitly set profile for "card 0"
+# PREREQ: The alsa-utils Debian package ships aplay and alsamixer utils
+# DEBUG: Check loaded ALSA soundcard kernel-modules
+# SHELL: root# cat /proc/asound/modules
+#   0 snd_hda_intel
+# DEBUG: List ALSA audio playback hardware devices
+# SHELL: root# aplay --list-devices
+#   card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC269VC Analog [ALC269VC Analog]
+#   card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
+# DEBUG: List all default ALSA soundcards and PCM digital audio interfaces
+# SHELL: root# aplay --list-pcms | egrep -A1 'default:'
+#   default:CARD=PCH
+#       HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VC Analog
+#   sysdefault:CARD=PCH
+#       HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VC Analog
+# DEBUG: List ALSA soundcards and PCM digital audio interfaces with
all software conversions
+# SHELL: root# aplay --list-pcms | egrep -A1 'plughw:'
+#   plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
+#       HDA Intel PCH, ALC269VC Analog
+#   plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=3
+#       HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 0
+# DEBUG: Check ALSA soundcard mixer settings
+# SHELL: root# alsamixer --card=0
+# DEBUG: Test speakers (DEV=0: "ALC269VC Analog" and DEV=3: "HDMI 0")
+# SHELL: user$ speaker-test -D plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 -c2 -l5 -twav
+# SHELL: user$ speaker-test -D plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=3 -c2 -l5 -twav
+##set-card-profile 0 output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo

- EOT -