1. Unbreaking Audio for the Unassuming Linux User
Daniel T Chen // Ohio LinuxFest 2008

2. What This Talk Won't Cover
“Which sound card should I purchase?”
“Which Linux distribution has the best sound support?”
“Which application programming interface (API) should I use when writing this whizbang?”
“42.”

3. (Re)Introducing Terminology
Open Sound System (OSS)
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA)
Free Firewire Audio Drivers (FFADO)
High Definition Audio (HDA)
Subsystem identifier (SSID)

4. Why Sound Doesn't Work out of the Box
Audio codec manufacturers enjoy the one-up game, too
ALSA/OSS/FFADO simply doesn't support the hardware [yet]
Initialising audio devices can be nondeterministic
A Linux distribution can't please every potential user, “more than one way to do things”

5. The User-Developer Paradigm, or We're Wrong As a Community
Sheer volume of sound issues noted on issue trackers, blogs, forums, and more, demotivates people
“A lot” of publicly available information actually is misinformation
“Closed world assumption” exists for Linux sound
Developers are users, too

6. So What's the Problem with Codecs?
AC'97 and HDA implementations vary widely
Computer manufacturer and model information are insufficient for troubleshooting
Even ALSA performs hardware differentiation (by SSID) poorly [for many computers]

7. “When I was your age...”

8. “I walked uphill both ways...”

9. “through snow and broken glass...”

10. “and I liked it!”

11. Troubleshooting ALSA Where does my audio issue originate? ALSA
alsa-{kernel,driver}/linux
Mixer confusion
alsa-lib
User-supplied configuration files (asoundrc)
alsa-plugins
PulseAudio/GStreamer/Phonon
GNOME session race condition(s)
Non-Free software components

12. Making Your Sound Card Work (The Basics)
Submit an issue request to your Linux distribution
Include:
Output from info.sh
Information about what application you were using when the symptom occurred
What you expected the application to do
What the application actually did
Ask someone, e.g., #alsa/irc.freenode.net, identi.ca, blog, forum

13. Making Your Sound Card Work (More than the Basics)
HDA user with unsupported codec?
See also
Attempting to configure multichannel ALSA?
See also s.html

14. When You Shouldn't Care You use a major desktop environment GNOME 2.24
PulseAudio
Qt 4.3 or KDE 4.1
Phonon
(Yes, I'm omitting several)
You couldn't care less about non-working hardware [and perhaps even buy it to hack on it]

15. The Bright Future
Encouraging vendors to provide unfettered documentation for their hardwares
Coalescing Linux distributions' automated hardware reports
Improving interoperability between key desktop environments
Growing the user-based support community

16. Demo

17. Unbreaking Audio for the Unassuming Linux User
Daniel T Chen // crimsun/irc.freenode.net/identi.ca
Ohio LinuxFest 2008