Hardy 8.04 & OSS4 (Alternative to ALSA)

[OpposingForce]

sudo apt-get install totem-gstreamer

Thanks for the quick reply, but I got this

cory@cory-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install totem-gstreamer
[sudo] password for cory: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
totem-gstreamer is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.

and I ran

sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-sound-base

And selected OSS, but oss still does not appear as an option in the GNOME sound menu.

[ebike]

Hi Guys,

I have just tried this install for the Creative X-fi Xmod USB card.

I installed the .deb package and that went fine, blacklisted all the alsa stuff as elsewhere in this thread, rebooted.

The OSS installation worked for my internal sound card and osstest plays on that device, however it doesn't work on the USB X-Fi card.

Has anyone else tried with this card, or is it just not supported. I know alsa doesn't support it in 8.04, yet it worked with alsa on 7.10.

dmesg gives:

[ 172.596215] New audioctl device 1/0 - USB sound device
[ 172.608061] USB mixer unit read error -71
[ 172.609156] USB mixer unit read error -71
[ 172.612185] USB mixer unit read error -71
[ 172.615243] New audio streaming device 1/1 - USB sound device
[ 172.615335] New audio streaming device 1/2 - USB sound device
[ 172.616051] ossusb: oss usbaudio: Failed to set interface mode, error -71 - ignored
[ 172.617038] ossusb: oss usbaudio: Failed to set interface mode, error -71 - ignored
[ 172.618025] ossusb: Endpoint control write error -71
[ 172.618031] Failed to set 44100 Hz sampling rate
[ 172.618035] osscore: Trigger (input) failed
[ 172.619031] ossusb: Endpoint control write error -71
[ 172.619037] Failed to set 44100 Hz sampling rate
[ 172.619040] osscore: Trigger failed
[ 172.668021] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, address 98
[ 173.898977] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 99
[ 174.065989] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 174.070874] usb 3-1: can't set config #1, error -84
[ 174.070924] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, address 99
[ 175.385756] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 100
[ 175.551778] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 175.557656] usb 3-1: can't set config #1, error -84
[ 175.557706] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, address 100
[ 176.872550] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 101
[ 177.038551] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 177.045303] usb 3-1: can't set config #1, error -84
[ 177.045353] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, address 101

ossinfo is:

Version info: OSS 4.0 (b1015/200803240256) (0x00040003)
Platform: Linux/i686 2.6.24-17-generic #1 SMP Thu May 1 14:31:33 UTC 2008 (Family)

Number of audio devices: 3
Number of audio engines: 20
Number of mixer devices: 2


Device objects
0: osscore0 OSS core services
1: via82330 VIA VT8235
2: ossusb0 USB audio core services
3: vmix0 OSS transparent virtual mixer
4: usb041e30d0-0 USB sound device
5: usb041e30d0-1 USB sound device
6: usb041e30d0-2 USB sound device


Mixer devices
0: VIA823x AC97 Mixer (CMI9739) (Mixer 0 of device object 1)
1: (USB sound device )(Mixer 0 of device object 4)

Audio devices
VIA VT8235 /dev/oss/via82330/pcm0 (device index 0)
(USB sound device play /dev/oss/usb041e30d0-1/pcm0 ) (device index 1)
(USB sound device rec /dev/oss/usb041e30d0-2/pcmin0 ) (device index 2)

lsmod shows the relevant modules:

Module Size Used by
vmix 14132 0
ossusb 56072 0
via8233 13296 0
osscore 565044 3 vmix,ossusb,via8233
ipv6 267780 8
binfmt_misc 12808 1
af_packet 23812 2
rfcomm 41744 2
l2cap 25728 13 rfcomm
bluetooth 61156 4 rfcomm,l2cap
ppdev 10372 0
cpufreq_powersave 2688 0
cpufreq_ondemand 9740 0
cpufreq_stats 7104 0
cpufreq_conservative 8712 0
cpufreq_userspace 5284 0
freq_table 5536 2 cpufreq_ondemand,cpufreq_stats
video 19856 0
output 4736 1 video
container 5632 0
dock 11280 0
sbs 15112 0
sbshc 7680 1 sbs
battery 14212 0
nfs 262540 1
lockd 67720 2 nfs
nfs_acl 4608 1 nfs
sunrpc 185884 9 nfs,lockd,nfs_acl
iptable_filter 3840 0
ip_tables 14820 1 iptable_filter
x_tables 16132 1 ip_tables
xfs 571416 1
ac 6916 0
lp 12324 0
usb_storage 73664 0
usbhid 31872 0
libusual 19108 1 usb_storage
hid 38784 1 usbhid
usblp 15872 0
nvidia 7825536 34
evdev 13056 4
i2c_viapro 9876 0
i2c_core 24832 2 nvidia,i2c_viapro
button 9232 0
parport_pc 36260 1
parport 37832 3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
via_ircc 27796 0
analog 13600 0
shpchp 34452 0
pci_hotplug 30880 1 shpchp
irda 203068 1 via_ircc
gameport 16008 1 analog
pcspkr 4224 0
via_agp 11136 1
crc_ccitt 3072 1 irda
agpgart 34760 2 nvidia,via_agp
ext3 136712 1
jbd 48404 1 ext3
mbcache 9600 1 ext3
sg 36880 0
sr_mod 17956 0
cdrom 37408 1 sr_mod
sd_mod 30720 4
pata_acpi 8320 0
ata_generic 8324 0
floppy 59588 0
pata_via 13316 3
via_rhine 26632 0
mii 6400 1 via_rhine
libata 159344 3 pata_acpi,ata_generic,pata_via
scsi_mod 151436 5 usb_storage,sg,sr_mod,sd_mod,libata
ehci_hcd 37900 0
uhci_hcd 27024 0
usbcore 146028 8 ossusb,usb_storage,usbhid,libusual,usblp,ehci_hcd, uhci_hcd
thermal 16796 0
processor 36872 1 thermal
fan 5636 0
fbcon 42912 0
tileblit 3456 1 fbcon
font 9472 1 fbcon
bitblit 6784 1 fbcon
softcursor 3072 1 bitblit
fuse 50580 3

But, doesn't look like ossusb sees the device.
Any suggestions anyone?

Thanks.

[OpposingForce]

Update

solved the problem with system sounds not working on my X-fi. I had to install esound by doing

sudo apt-get install esound libesd0

and 

sudo apt-get install esound-clients

Then I logged out, and back in to restart gnome, and heard the ubuntu theme music. It still doesnt show OSS or esound in the gnome sound program, but at least it works. Hope this helps others

[Yellow Pasque]

ebike, I don't know if your USB X-fi card is supported. I suggest making a thread on the OpenSound forums.
Other suggestions would include disabling your onboard audio in the BIOS if you're not using it (run soundoff, ossdetect -v, and soundon on the next boot if you do that) and configuring your audio program to resample to 48KHz (Creative/E-MU chips usually resample to 48KHz in hardware, but it appears the 44.1 KHz format is choking it.)
If you don't see a resampling setting in your media player, try installing Audacious (available in Synaptic/Ubuntu repo) for test purposes. It has a resampling option.

[Yellow Pasque]

Purging a Failed OSS4 .deb Install, the Ubuntu Way
(Based on http://www.4front-tech.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2054, thanks to Dev Mazumdar)

cd /var/lib/dpkg/info
sudo rm oss-linux*

Now run the following command and press Ctrl+F or click on the Find icon. Enter oss-linux and it should bring you to a block of text that looks similar to the quote below. Remove that block, save, and quit.

gksudo gedit /var/lib/dpkg/status

Package: oss-linux
Status: install ok installed
Priority: extra
Section: alien
Installed-Size: 8440
Maintainer: root <root@dev-desktop>
Architecture: amd64
Version: v4.0rc9-999
Depends: libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.1), libc6 (>= 2.4-1), libcairo2 (>= 1.2.4), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.3.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.12.0), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.10.3), libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.14.5), libx11-6, libxcursor1 (>> 1.1.2), libxext6, libxfixes3, libxi6, libxinerama1, libxrandr2, libxrender1
Conffiles:
/etc/oss.conf 055432d38aaf37fc6de3dba4a95accc3
Description: Open Sound System sound drivers for Linux
Open Sound System for Linux (OSS/Linux) is a commercial quality sound driver
distributed by 4Front Technologies (http://www.opensound.com). OSS provides
support for practically all sound cards on the market including PnP and
many PCI ones. Installation and configuration is higly automated and easy to
perform. To obtain technical support and additional features, you will need to
order a license key from http://www.opensound.com/order.html
.
(Converted from a rpm package by alien version 8.64.)

[spotteddog]

Update

solved the problem with sound systems not working on my X-fi. I had to install esound by doing

sudo apt-get install esound libesd0

and 

sudo apt-get install esound-clients

Then I logged out, and back in to restart gnome, and heard the ubuntu theme music. It still doesnt show OSS or esound in the gnome sound program, but at least it works. Hope this helps others

Thanks OpposingForce. It works for me too. (X-Fi, OSS4 and Hardy).

[ebike]

ebike, I don't know if your USB X-fi card is supported. I suggest making a thread on the OpenSound forums.
Other suggestions would include disabling your onboard audio in the BIOS if you're not using it (run soundoff, ossdetect -v, and soundon on the next boot if you do that) and configuring your audio program to resample to 48KHz (Creative/E-MU chips usually resample to 48KHz in hardware, but it appears the 44.1 KHz format is choking it.)
If you don't see a resampling setting in your media player, try installing Audacious (available in Synaptic/Ubuntu repo) for test purposes. It has a resampling option.

Thanks for the advice, I will join that forum. I don't know about your logic on the 48k sampling rate. I get that error on the 44.1khz when the module is loaded (i.e when I plig the card into the USB), there are no programs trying to send data to the card at the time, I have disabled everything. The card hasn't really been recognized yet .....

[StratusX]

STratusX, maybe try reinstalling OSS4

I've tried that. installing it isn't the problem. But trying to start it causes my system to crash.

[Yellow Pasque]

I've updated the guide. Please let me know if you have problems with the installation. If you get the package installed, but still don't hear sound, please post here: http://4front-tech.com/forum/index.php

[jasontu]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...usb+microphone

Would it be possible that this OSS4 would help me fix my problem getting a USB microphone to work? (issue linked to above)

As it is the USB Audio Device is detected by system, it seems to even detect that there is a microphone on it. It plays sound to the headphones just fine, but it refuses to pick up sound from the microphone. I'm not at the machine now but I'm pretty sure that it is managed by ALSA at the moment. The USB mic is Gigaware, RadioShack's generic brand.

Thanks.