Pulseaudio and S/PDIF [was Re: ConsoleKit and esound retirement]

[Adam Williamson]

On 15/02/13 10:22 AM, DJ Delorie wrote:
>
> (subject changed, please strip the [was...] when replying)
>
>> On 13/02/13 10:15 AM, DJ Delorie wrote:
>>> (well, more like crap, since I still haven't figured out how to
>>> get pulseaudio to use my digital audio outputs).
>>
>> Really? It's not that hard. It's either a device or a profile right on
>> the very first tab of GNOME sound properties. If you're using
>> pavucontrol, devices are on the 'Output Devices' tab, profiles are on
>> the 'Configuration' tab. It's rather easier than doing the same thing
>> with ALSA, really.
>
> I know all about those.  I've tried them all.  I've gone through all
> the online discussions about how to get digital outputs to work with
> pulseaudio.  I've hacked at the config files and tried to trace the
> operation.  I've been doing this with every update since pulseaudio
> was introduced, and they're all clean installs, not upgrades.  It
> worked just fine with ALSA.  I've even run GNOME sound properties,
> despite not running a GNOME desktop.  I haven't yet tried F18 though,
> because I don't yet have the spare days it takes to do that.
>
> It just doesn't work.
>
> I know the hardware works, because XBMC uses the digital output just
> fine (and sounds seriously better).  The motherboard is a Gigabyte
> GA-X58A-UD3R although I do have an HDMI-compatible video card (and
> yes, I know you have to disable audio on that, the video card is much
> more recent than my PA woes).
>
> 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller
> 03:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Barts HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6800 Series]
> 07:00.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 02)

That's weird. Definitely just some kind of bug specific to your system, 
though, the normal PA experience with digital output is pretty simple. 
I've had no problem with it. You don't really need to disable any output 
sources in most cases, either (I haven't bothered disabling any of the 
umpteen sources that appear to exist on my system, I just pick the one I 
actually want to use, and it works, no problems at all). Do you have a 
bug report in?
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
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