assistance with alsa setup and rme soundcard?

[tunist]

greetings!

i have two soundcards on this desktop and am setting up linux mint mate 14.
one is the nvidia mobo soundcard
and one is an rme multiface soundcard.

after install, the nvidia card basic functions worked (i believe through pulseaudio) and the rme card did not.

i can list both cards as visible via terminal using:

Code: Select all

lspci

i visited alsa website to look to see if the rme card is supported and it is. i have located a mixer and applet for the card to allow changing settings for it.
then attempted to follow the guidelines for installing alsa on the alsa site - here: http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index. ... odule-hdsp.

i got through to the last step of making/installing and recall seeing some errors..
when i repeat the process from scratch i now am seeing many 'permission denied' messages - for unknown reasons (i am using sudo).

presently, neither soundcard is listed in the sound hardware list and no sound comes from the pc.

the alsa page speaks of /etc/​modules.conf and/or similarly named files.. i only see etc/modules on my installation..

anyone know of a definitive guide for this for linux mint? why is this such a struggle!?

thanks

[tunist]

an update to this:

i reinstalled pulseaudio to attempt to get basic sound back..
i notice that the sound option is no longer shown by the control center panel in mint.

still no sound!

[tunist]

haha.. i have moved through various linux distributions since i opened this thread and still have not gotten the rme card to function with linux (mint/ubuntu).

still wondering if anyone on here knows what i am missing..

[tunist]

hmm..
i have now read through several detailed walkthrough guides online for soundcard installation with linux ubuntu/mint. such as:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iTl ... SFLMI/edit#
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Sound ... gProcedure

i have manually compiled the alsa drivers (which appeared to work when i did it using simple commands.. and did not work when i used the method suggested in one of the tutorial pages - errors were produced relating to what i think to be a linux kernel file - i think it was 'versions.h').

where i am at now is that i have no sound on the pc at all. both my mobo and rme soundcards are identified as activated by ALSA.. yet typing 'aplay -l' produces 'no soundcards found'..
i am unclear on why that is occurring.

no sound cards are currently identified in the 'sound preferences' > hardware panel. (previously the onboard mobo card was in there and functioning ok, now nada).

i notice there are many similar threads to this one.. and that the alsa website appears to have not been updated much in the last few years. does anyone have any tips, advice or email addresses for alsa/sound/linux 'experts'?
i sent a message to the alsa mailing list and saw no response.

[El Zoido]

I can only wish you good luck.
I had trouble getting my sound to work after I had tried a (failed) manual driver install but finally resorted to a complete reinstall of Mint.
The Linux sound architecture is completely obscure to me (then again, I'm little more than a noob when it comes to Linux).
My advice would be to try a different forum than this one.
Unfortunately it's rather unlikely that you will get much help here for rare and somewhat complicated issues (at least that's my experience).

[tunist]

thanks for the tip.
i have had some assistance from linuxquestions.org and via the rme website forum too.
i now have a more thorough comprehension of the linux audio processes and modules...
the rme soundcard is now functioning alongside the mobo soundcard and i am partway through finalising the configuration of the various apps etc.

i may write a tutorial for this issue as it has been one of the most complex i have ever encountered with an os.