Help with recording/mic and OSS, Audacity 1.3.9

[jdacronym]

Hello, I'm new to this forum, as my postcount doubtless indicates.

I'm using audacity with OSS on my recently installed Arch laptop. I've got an HDAudio STAC 9205 card.

Sound works on this machine, and I can play back sound files from my computer in Audacity (using /etc/asound.conf to point the various ALSA devices at various devices in /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/). ALSA:default works, as does ALSA:ossin1, strangely enough, while the others do not.

When I switch from ALSA to OSS under Help->Devices->Interface->Host, things hit the fan. I can't play anything back (selecting /dev/dsp5, which is /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcmin2, even hangs audacity). When I hit record, I get the generic error "Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate." The sample rate, by the way, is set to 48.000 kHz, which is what my oss mixer is running at.

Using the ALSA aliases I've set up lets me play things back, but when I hit record and speak into my mic (connected to an input jack according to ossxmix) I get nothing.

here's the output from Help->Audio Device Info. Apologies for the long quote.

==============================
Default capture device number: 4
Default playback device number: 4
==============================
Device ID: 0
Device name: ALSA: oss
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
192000
==============================
Device ID: 1
Device name: ALSA: ossin0
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
192000
==============================
Device ID: 2
Device name: ALSA: ossin1
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
192000
==============================
Device ID: 3
Device name: ALSA: ossin2
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
192000
==============================
Device ID: 4
Device name: ALSA: default
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
192000
==============================
Device ID: 5
Device name: OSS: /dev/dsp
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
==============================
Device ID: 6
Device name: OSS: /dev/dsp1
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
==============================
Device ID: 7
Device name: OSS: /dev/dsp2
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
==============================
Device ID: 8
Device name: OSS: /dev/dsp3
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
==============================
Device ID: 9
Device name: OSS: /dev/dsp4
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
==============================
Device ID: 10
Device name: OSS: /dev/dsp5
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
192000
==============================
Selected capture device: 0 - ALSA: oss
Selected playback device: 2 - ALSA: ossin1
Supported Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
192000
Unable to open Portmixer

So, what could be wrong? Does the warning about portmixer at the end tell us anything? Also, why does only /dev/dsp5 show support for any sampling rates at all, while the emulated ALSA ones do?

Any help would be appreciated.

[steve]

Why do you want to use OSS? It's pretty well obsolete (unless you mean OSS4, in which case you need to remove or blacklist ALSA)

[jdacronym]

I do mean OSS4. ALSA isn't loaded, I just made an asound.conf that points ALSA applications at my OSS devices.

[steve]

It may be worth seeing if you can get hold of Igor Chernenko (igorche) on the Audacity-Nyquist mailing list. You will need to subscribe to the list to be able to post there, and you will need to be extremely polite as you question is off-topic for that list (which is primarily about Nyquist plug-ins). However, I know he is a big advocate of OSS4 on Linux, whereas I know little about it other than it screws up ALSA.
He made a recent post here: http://n2.nabble.com/Ubuntu-s-switch-to ... l#a3790607
The subscription page is here: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/lis ... ty-nyquist

If it's any help, I have a virtual machine set up to test OSS4 and have Audacity running in it.
The device info for Audacity is:

Code: Select all

==============================
Default capture device number: -1
Default playback device number: -1
==============================
Device ID: 0
Device name: OSS: /dev/dsp
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 2
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    12000
    15000
    16000
    22050
    24000
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    192000
==============================
Selected capture device: 0 - 
Selected playback device: 0 - 
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    12000
    15000
    16000
    22050
    24000
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    192000
==============================
Available mixers:
==============================
Available capture sources:
0 - Vol  
1 - Line 
2 - Mic  
3 - CD   
4 - Line1
5 - PhoneIn
6 - PhoneOut
7 - Video
==============================
Available playback volumes:
0 - Vol  
1 - Pcm  
2 - Spkr 
3 - Line 
4 - Mic  
5 - CD   
6 - IGain
7 - Line1
8 - PhoneIn
9 - PhoneOut
10 - Video
==============================
Capture volume is native
Capture volume is native