On Wed, 2006-03-01 at 23:07 +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> Lee Revell <rlrevell@email-addr-hidden-job.com> writes:
>
> > On Wed, 2006-03-01 at 22:32 +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> >> What happens now if I do
> >> aplay -D spdif something.wav
> >> ? Most certainly not the soundcard with the S/PDIF output gets used.
> >> Instead some nonsense happens.
> >
> > That can't ever work because we don't have enough information about
> > all the supported devices to definitively say device $FOO has SPDIF
> > and device $BAR doesn't. Lots of devices look like they have SPDIF
> > to the driver but it's not wired up to anything. Etc.
> >
> > Solving this problem in the way you suggest would require the ALSA
> > developers having all the details about the hardware that the people
> > who write the Windows drivers do. This is not going to happen
> > anytime soon.
>
> I am not asking for a solution. I am asking for a clue. The man page
> to aplay does not mention what a PCM actually is. It just tells you
> to list them with -L. It does not mention that you can just tack a :1
> after it to specify a different sound card. It does not bother to
> mention that the PCM list from -L is basically static and not
> depending on the actual available sound card capabilities, applies in
> this form only and exclusively to the default sound card, and can be
> used for other sound cards by tacking on little cute suffixes like :1.
>
> This sort of stuff is simply undocumented anywhere close to where it
> would be used. I have not been able to find it, and I asked man
> pages, general ALSA documentation, HOWTOs and Google.
>
If someone wants to set up an "ALSA mini HOWTO wiki" I'll start the
content, by adding the info from this thread. But it can't stay a Wiki
because those fill up with misinformation or extraneous information
eventually - when it's done we'll publish it as a static HOWTO.
Lee
Received on Thu Mar 2 00:15:09 2006
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