Audacity 2.0.5 not seeing hardware

Audacity Help Forum GNU/Linux
1

I’m more of the type “if it ain’t broke don’t change it” type.

But if you want improvements in your software, you gotta follow an upgrade path.
And many times version upgrades are only available at newer versions of the kernel.
So with some time off work I had plenty of time to fix they typical linux disasters (like dropping support for video cards, etc)
I’m running Mint 17 x64 so now I can run version 2.0.5 of Audacity.

Previously I had very intermittent freezing issues in Audacity running the embedded sounds on the MB. The fix was upgrading to a Asus Xonar DG sound card and turning the embedded sound OFF in the bios. That was several months back and the card upgrade eliminated the freezing issue 100%.
As long as I had Xonar multichannel selected in the hardware in Audacity, it was rock solid.

So here I go; upgraded to new distro, running 2.0.5 finally and I can’t get the Xonar card to show up in the Audacity hardware list.
It is enable and tested in the OS sound options and it works on built in sound, and other playback. It is selected as primary. But it won’t show up in Audacity, but all the settings for the DISABLED embedded sound shows up. How frustrating!
Any ideas guys??

2

Please post the output from “Audio Device Info” from the Audacity Help menu.

3

HERE IT IS:
The HDA ATI SB: ALC888 device is the embedded audio which is turned off in the bios.

It very well may be the working audio (card) is showing up as system default. But in the previous install of linux (and 2.0.3) selecting this didn’t provide 100% solid reliability.
The Xonar card showed up as a device and selecting that always gave 100% reliability.


==============================
Default capture device number: 6
Default playback device number: 6
==============================
Device ID: 0
Device name: HDA ATI SB: ALC888 Analog (hw:1,0)
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 8
Low Input Latency: 0.005805
Low Output Latency: 0.005805
High Input Latency: 0.034830
High Output Latency: 0.034830
Supported Rates:
    44100
    48000
    96000
    192000
==============================
Device ID: 1
Device name: HDA ATI SB: ALC888 Digital (hw:1,1)
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.005805
Low Output Latency: 0.005805
High Input Latency: 0.034830
High Output Latency: 0.034830
Supported Rates:
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    192000
==============================
Device ID: 2
Device name: HDA ATI SB: ALC888 Alt Analog (hw:1,2)
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 0
Low Input Latency: 0.005805
Low Output Latency: -1.000000
High Input Latency: 0.034830
High Output Latency: -1.000000
Supported Rates:
==============================
Device ID: 3
Device name: sysdefault
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 128
Output channels: 128
Low Input Latency: 0.021333
Low Output Latency: 0.021333
High Input Latency: 0.021333
High Output Latency: 0.021333
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    16000
    22050
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    176400
    352800
==============================
Device ID: 4
Device name: pulse
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 32
Output channels: 32
Low Input Latency: 0.008707
Low Output Latency: 0.008707
High Input Latency: 0.034830
High Output Latency: 0.034830
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    12000
    15000
    16000
    22050
    24000
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    176400
    192000
==============================
Device ID: 5
Device name: dmix
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 0
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: -1.000000
Low Output Latency: 0.021333
High Input Latency: -1.000000
High Output Latency: 0.021333
Supported Rates:
    48000
==============================
Device ID: 6
Device name: default
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 32
Output channels: 32
Low Input Latency: 0.008707
Low Output Latency: 0.008707
High Input Latency: 0.034830
High Output Latency: 0.034830
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    12000
    15000
    16000
    22050
    24000
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    176400
    192000
==============================
Selected capture device: 6 - default
Selected playback device: 5 - dmix
Supported Rates:
    48000
==============================
Available mixers:
==============================
Available capture sources:
0 - Front Mic:0
1 - Line:0
2 - Mic:0
3 - Aux:0
4 - Active:0
5 - Frozen:0
==============================
Available playback volumes:
==============================
Capture volume is emulated
Playback volume is emulated
4

If your ASUS Xonar is an external device (USB or Firewire), ensure that it is connected and working before you launch Audacity.

5

Negative,
It is a PCI-E card.

6

This bites.

Work on a 1 hr program last night and Audacity crashed at least 5 times. It is the typical issues of ALSA handling the hardware instead of Audacity pointing directly to it.
The only way I can get audio out is to set the hardware to default. Have to figure out a solution here.

7

I presume that you have tried trawling through the Linux Mint forums, (in particular their “hardware support” board http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewforum.php?f=49). There are several threads there about the Asus Xonar DG sound card.

It may also be worth contacting Asus (http://www.asus.com/uk/Sound_Cards_and_DigitaltoAnalog_Converters/Xonar_DG/HelpDesk/). I doubt that you will get much help from them, but if they are aware that Linux users would like to use their products, then they may eventually consider supporting it.

8

Hey Steve,
The thing is it -works- under Mint 17. In the audio properties you can select the Xonar device and test the sound, works fine.
The problem is I can’t get audicity to assign it to hardware address. All it gets assigned to is default.
But it gives hardware support to the embedded audio of the AMD MB chipset; this is turned off in the bios.

9

Audacity just probes the system to see what devices are available, then offers those choices in the device toolbar. The only available device that it can find is the ALC888.

Do you have PulseAudio volume control installed? If not, install it (the package is called “pavucontrol”).
When installed, open it and go to the “Configuration” tab. The devices that are available on your system will be listed there. What options are shown? (you could post screen shots).