Alsa Vs Audigy + flash + Pulse Audio, workaround
There is one weird decision from the team that makes and maintains Quantal distro,
which is why on some configurations (mine for example), adobe flash, audio in general - do not know "where should go to".
That decision is - preconfigured and installed Pulse Audio.
Pulse server/framework, whatever it is, is - a little bit - not good for Audigy cards.
Now add increddibly greedy decisions and "support" from Adobe Flash on the top of that.
If there is at least one more additional VGA HDMI audio port beside default audio device,
just as it is in many pc cases (ATI HDMI for example), the following situation may occur :
Video clip video runs smoothly, great, but without sound, all of the sudden. During that period, the audio (amarok, mp3, etc.) runs ok, but not as expected. Flash and HTML5 video or any video stream - nope. Silence. A card, instead of being identified as SB Audigy 4 [SB0610] with all the bass and treble equalizer hardware becomes SB Audigy2 [duplex stereo] .. :mad:
Well, it's some kind of identify.
Pulse Audio bug, most likely. Or not.
When I log in as root, not as a normal sudo => root, and start KDE, Phonon throws the right choice for audio hardware, with all the options and everything is ok.
KDE asks if I would get to keep audio devices found, however, after the normal login, everything is the same as before.
( That is why you should never fool your self to login and work as primary system root, especially when You want to write configuration files with root only permissions. If You only want to check some portion for good, it's ok than. ) Flash will draw, but will not sing, the audio is ... well, is not that what it should be.
Fortunately, the solution to this preconfigured "Pulse auto-decision" is - simple because, alsa is beautifully preconfigured by default as well. Works great.
If someone ran into similar trouble as I did,
kill all programs that run in the background, using audio, etc. .. then:
You may or may not want to remove all other pulse leftovers manually.
Also, kmix, may or may not be removed, because there are better hard-core alternatives for mixer application.
Reboot.
After that, there is only good old Alsa and everything works as it should. Flash, audio, another video at the same time .. no errors, no more wrong auto-decisions by Pulse.
JUST alsa - does the job perfectly. At least, precisely and correct for Audigy2/Audigy4 based sound cards.
Those who are struggling with adjusting / modifying Alsa files, it does not hurt to stop by here >> Alsa Wiki
.. and here .. some more interesting information >> Multiple Cards
As for the mixer, the mixer at all, rather than a kmix, this really works nicely >> QasTools
I assume that pulse has a very good role if it runs on a netbook or notebook, or when audio network sharing of any kind is all about, but when it comes to regular php/dev PC, PulseAudio is only the excess.. therefore, this just can't be applied as bug category, because drivers for Windoze do suck, too, and are hard to find and to assign properly. Harder than ALSA. In fact, ALSA is the top choice for SB Audigy models, no doubt.
All of You "Creative" folks who have a desire to try out this distro, and use it for good (don't know about other sound cards, other than Audigy models), with more than one audio hardware available on desktop system, should be aware of this.
which is why on some configurations (mine for example), adobe flash, audio in general - do not know "where should go to".
That decision is - preconfigured and installed Pulse Audio.
Pulse server/framework, whatever it is, is - a little bit - not good for Audigy cards.
Now add increddibly greedy decisions and "support" from Adobe Flash on the top of that.
If there is at least one more additional VGA HDMI audio port beside default audio device,
just as it is in many pc cases (ATI HDMI for example), the following situation may occur :
Video clip video runs smoothly, great, but without sound, all of the sudden. During that period, the audio (amarok, mp3, etc.) runs ok, but not as expected. Flash and HTML5 video or any video stream - nope. Silence. A card, instead of being identified as SB Audigy 4 [SB0610] with all the bass and treble equalizer hardware becomes SB Audigy2 [duplex stereo] .. :mad:
Well, it's some kind of identify.
Pulse Audio bug, most likely. Or not.
When I log in as root, not as a normal sudo => root, and start KDE, Phonon throws the right choice for audio hardware, with all the options and everything is ok.
KDE asks if I would get to keep audio devices found, however, after the normal login, everything is the same as before.
( That is why you should never fool your self to login and work as primary system root, especially when You want to write configuration files with root only permissions. If You only want to check some portion for good, it's ok than. ) Flash will draw, but will not sing, the audio is ... well, is not that what it should be.Fortunately, the solution to this preconfigured "Pulse auto-decision" is - simple because, alsa is beautifully preconfigured by default as well. Works great.
If someone ran into similar trouble as I did,
kill all programs that run in the background, using audio, etc. .. then:
Code:
sudo apt-get autoremove pulseaudio
Also, kmix, may or may not be removed, because there are better hard-core alternatives for mixer application.
Reboot.
After that, there is only good old Alsa and everything works as it should. Flash, audio, another video at the same time .. no errors, no more wrong auto-decisions by Pulse.
JUST alsa - does the job perfectly. At least, precisely and correct for Audigy2/Audigy4 based sound cards.
Those who are struggling with adjusting / modifying Alsa files, it does not hurt to stop by here >> Alsa Wiki
.. and here .. some more interesting information >> Multiple Cards
As for the mixer, the mixer at all, rather than a kmix, this really works nicely >> QasTools
I assume that pulse has a very good role if it runs on a netbook or notebook, or when audio network sharing of any kind is all about, but when it comes to regular php/dev PC, PulseAudio is only the excess.. therefore, this just can't be applied as bug category, because drivers for Windoze do suck, too, and are hard to find and to assign properly. Harder than ALSA. In fact, ALSA is the top choice for SB Audigy models, no doubt.
All of You "Creative" folks who have a desire to try out this distro, and use it for good (don't know about other sound cards, other than Audigy models), with more than one audio hardware available on desktop system, should be aware of this.
Thank you Kubuntu developers for that. Audigy cards are quite rock-solid regarding hardware and possibilities, but that's where it stops. There is no good original software for it (even for windoze). Creative never provided enough for their customers from that point. And we are on our own.
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