Turtle Beach Riviera Sound Card $%^&^ (solved)

[farna]

I specifically sought out a Turtle Beach Riviera sound card because:
1. I needed something with optical or coaxial SPIDF out for my A/V receiver to get surround sound (using optical).
2. Several reviewers on the NewEgg.com site reported that it "worked great with Ubuntu".

So now I have no $%^^& sound. Nothing. Forcing pulse-audio to reload doesn't do anything. First problem was the stupid Sony A/V receiver. It only has optical sound in for the Blu-Ray selection, not DVD. I was using the DVD selection for the computer). Simple change of an HDMI cable and I'm good to go with video (using the silent computer now).

I've read several posts, but can't really figure out what to try. I've installed a Pulse Audio applet and made sure I have digital output turned on, but get nothing. It seems that Mint comes set up for Pulse Audio and I might need to change to ALSA??? Pulse Audio Manager indicates I need to switch to ALSA also. It list the source as
"alsa_input.pci-0000_01_09.0.iec958-stereo CM8738 Digital Stereo (IEC958)"

lspci gives sound as:
01:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10)

This listing may help:
swygert@Living-Room ~ $ inxi -A
Audio: Card C-Media Electronics CM8738 driver C-Media PCI
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.20
swygert@Living-Room ~ $ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: CMI8738 [C-Media CMI8738], device 0: CMI8738-MC6 [C-Media PCI DAC/ADC]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CMI8738 [C-Media CMI8738], device 1: CMI8738-MC6 [C-Media PCI 2nd DAC]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CMI8738 [C-Media CMI8738], device 2: CMI8738-MC6 [C-Media PCI IEC958]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0


I checked for upgrades and such to ALSA, but the only sound card/chip models listed are Intel or related to Intel cards/motherboards, nothing listing the CM8738. One post on the forum said I'd lose Gnome in the process of trying to remove PulseAudio, don't want that either! Can PulseAudio and ALSA live together?

I'm about tired of having to return half of what I buy to work with these Linux computers. Is there a sound card with SPDIF output known to work with Mint? I bought an A/V receiver and surround sound speakers, have it all installed, and can't use it. I'd really like to get this sound card working, but if I have to throw more money away and return it (restocking fee, shipping back...) then I will. My motherboard has surround sound, but only analog! The SPDIF output from the board will only do stereo digital output over the HDMI cable. The Sony receiver manual (STR-DH-500) indicates that SPDIF is needed for surround sound.

I tried a force reload of alsa, nothing. The motherboard sound has been disabled in BIOS, the only sound source reported is thr sound card.

[rob2uk]

Removing Pulseaudio shouldn't remove Gnome...

It will, however, remove mint-meta-main and mint-meta-gnome, this isn't a huge problem until it comes time to upgrade to the next version of Mint. But then again, it's almost always better to do a fresh install instead of an upgrade

Try the instructions in this post: http://ubuntu-ky.ubuntuforums.org/showt ... ?p=8284273

[farna]

I'm going to have enough on my HTPC that I would much rather upgrade than save all files and start over from scratch. That's an idiotic way for a system to "upgrade". Might as well stick with Windows, it needs to be installed from scratch every couple years anyway, upgrading or not! At least they do have an upgrade path that normally works though. Now you're telling me I need to load from scratch every couple years with a supposedly much more stable and better OS? Hope that's not why it's so stable!!

A second thought: is there a sound card with SPIDF output (optical or coaxial) that will work with Pulse Audio and Mint the way it ships? I'll just return the card I have and waste a little more money! With the time invested getting this one to work I think it would be a wash in the long run.

I've been reading enough about Pulse Audio to think that the Ubuntu developers are just nuts -- why integrate something that may not work with all systems in the kernel? Someone pushing PA to them that much, paying someone off?? If PA was loaded as a module it wouldn't matter so much if it didn't work with a particular hardware combo -- just change the modules and use a sound system that works for you. So much for the modularity of unix-like systems.

[farna]

See last post in this thread for more info:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 37#p230637

[farna]

I added details of my sound problems and getting this card working to my blog, http://newtolinuxmint.blogspot.com/