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How to get started with Audio in Linux

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johnnypanrike
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How to get started with Audio in Linux

#1 Post by johnnypanrike »

Dear Forum,

I run Debian Bullseye.

I am quite lost when it comes to audio. I suspect that my system is not working somehow but since I know so little of how it should work, I find it hard to ask good questions.

So I really do not know where to begin, educate myself to be able to ask good questions or submit a random inquiry about things that do not work?

For example I get a perpetual “Establishing connection to PulseAudio. Please wait …” when I start Pulse Audio Volume Control, can this be fixed? Does it need to be fixed, what does it even mean? It sounds like something is wrong for sure and I bet that I would like to be able to runs Pulse Audio Volume Control.

I have been able to get my headphones working with “amixer set ‘Headphone’ ‘unmute’” and then “amixer set ‘Headphone’ ‘unmute’” so amixer seems to be a useful tool. But then, how does that tool fit into a bigger picture? How can I learn about the bigger picture?

So can someone help me making a sort of diagnosis of my system and also point me to some sort of tutorial on sound, I have of course googled but I seem to be unable to find something that takes things from the ground up. Most tutorials are too advanced for me at this point.

Kindest regards
Johnny

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#2 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

The usual suspects for audio problems are

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cat /proc/asound/cards
Or

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aplay -l
Both provide the same information (ish).

From your description it sounds like PulseAudio isn't working, check with

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pgrep -a pulse
And as you claim to be running Debian stable but it has problems I think we need to see the output of

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apt policy
See also https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

In respect of asking questions see http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
deadbang

johnnypanrike
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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#3 Post by johnnypanrike »

Thank you very much for your response.

Indeed it seems that pulse is not running, the output of

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pgrep -a pulse
is empty. However, in my ignorance I unfortunately do not know how to use that information. The result of

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aplay -l
is

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**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC3254 Analog [ALC3254 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 10: HDMI 4 [HDMI 4]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
and the output of

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apt policy
is

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Package files:
 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     release a=now
 500 http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates/main amd64 Packages
     release v=11-updates,o=Debian,a=stable-updates,n=bullseye-updates,l=Debian,c=main,b=amd64
     origin ftp.se.debian.org
 500 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security/non-free amd64 Packages
     release v=11,o=Debian,a=stable-security,n=bullseye-security,l=Debian-Security,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin security.debian.org
 500 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security/main amd64 Packages
     release v=11,o=Debian,a=stable-security,n=bullseye-security,l=Debian-Security,c=main,b=amd64
     origin security.debian.org
 500 http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian bullseye/contrib amd64 Packages
     release v=11.5,o=Debian,a=stable,n=bullseye,l=Debian,c=contrib,b=amd64
     origin ftp.se.debian.org
 500 http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian bullseye/non-free amd64 Packages
     release v=11.5,o=Debian,a=stable,n=bullseye,l=Debian,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin ftp.se.debian.org
 500 http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 Packages
     release v=11.5,o=Debian,a=stable,n=bullseye,l=Debian,c=main,b=amd64
     origin ftp.se.debian.org
Pinned packages:
I have installed some packages / applications from outside of Debian's repository, but not so many. (One for wifi and two others for downloading videos from youtube) but other that I believe I otherwise always have gone with

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sudo apt-get install
whenever I needed something. I have also recently done a full reinstall from scratch so I hope that if I have introduced inconsistencies that this will be fairly easy to rectify.

Kindest regards
Johnny

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#4 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

So which desktop is this?

Can we see the output of

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cat /proc/1/comm
These commands should get your headphones working without having to use amixer every time:

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$ amixer set 'Headphone' 'unmute'
$ amixer set 'Auto-Mute Mode' 'Enabled'
# alsactl store
And this might get PA working:

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start-pulseaudio-x11
If it doesn't work post the full error message. Thanks.

EDIT: and which non-Debian software did you install, exactly? How did you install it?
deadbang

johnnypanrike
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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#5 Post by johnnypanrike »

Thanks again, certainly, here are the reponses:

I run lxde as a desktop.

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cat /proc/1/comm
yields

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systemd
I found the amixer commands for setting the Headphone volume and it seems to be persistent between boots so I think that bit is ok. However I got a

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bash: alsactl: command not found
when trying to run alsactl. I searched for what to install to get it, but I did not find it.

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start-pulseaudio-x11
got the error message

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Connection failure: Connection refused
pa_context_connect() failed: Connection refused
I slapped on a sudo there, but still the same error.

I have installed youtube-dl I believe it is a statically linked executable and it is located at /usr/local/bin. Similarly yt-dlp which is an improvement of youtube-dl. I have also added the non-free drivers to get wifi working, I installed that with sudo apt-get install though, I believe the name of the package is lwlwifi.

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#6 Post by johnnypanrike »

This actually got the Pulseaudio running:

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mv ~/.config/pulse ~/.config/pulse.old
pulseaudio --start
I can now also run PulseAudio Volume Control ! :-)

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#7 Post by NorthEast »

johnnypanrike wrote:
when trying to run alsactl. I searched for what to install to get it, but I did not find it.
alsactl is in the alsa-utils package. If you know the filename you can find the package it resides in at: https://www.debian.org/distrib/packages

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#8 Post by johnnypanrike »

Thank you for your reply. I think then that there must some misunderstanding, this is from a prompt this evening:

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johnny@aramies:~$ sudo apt-get install alsa-utils
[sudo] password for johnny: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
alsa-utils is already the newest version (1.2.4-1).
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  python3-pyxattr rtmpdump
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 85 not upgraded.
johnny@aramies:~$ alsactl
bash: alsactl: command not found
johnny@aramies:~$ 


Is there really some sort of deeper trouble with my system?

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#9 Post by NorthEast »

Doesn't look like deeper trouble on the matter of alsactl.
alsactl is indeed in the alsa-utils package:

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[tom@owl ]$ apt-file show alsa-utils
<snip>
alsa-utils: /usr/sbin/alsactl
<snip>
It resides in the /usr/sbin directory which is likely not in the PATH of the user (you) on your system, which would be why the user can't run it. You can check the path that the user has available with:

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echo $PATH
To run alsactl, you can do so as root, or use the full path on the command line as user, e.g.:

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/usr/sbin/alsactl info

johnnypanrike
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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#10 Post by johnnypanrike »

Ah, yes, thank you this makes sense. I *do* have alsactl as root so I'll have to sudo the times I need run alsactl.

I think there is only one minor issue left now, and that is that to start and successfully run pavucontrol I need to manually invoke

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pulseaudio --start
and directly after that start pavucontrol becuase it also seems that pavucontrol only shows "Dummy Device" if it is started later on in the session. This is manageable albeit I bet this is not how it is supposed to work. I'll let it settle for a while before asking questions about it.

Thank you for all your help.

Kindest regards
Johnny

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#11 Post by johnnypanrike »

Update: I have found some things that appear to work, I write

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pulseaudio --start
to start pulseaudio. After that I can issue

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pavucontrol
to be able to set volumes. But I also am occasionally writing

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amixer set Capture toggle
and

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amixer set Capture 40% - 40%
and

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amixer set Master 45%
to be able to set volumes and toggle the microphone on or off. It seems that these maneuvers are working. My original plan was to start working with Pulseeffects, I have installed it and I am trying to run it, however, there seems to be some kind of problem with the user interface (buttons are greyed out). My current idea is to install another desktop, I get the impression that the issue lies with the interface. What I now wish to do is to install say XFCE, I am thinking that a more sophisticated desktop perhaps will be able to run the GUI of Pulseeffects better.

Could you tell me how to install XFCE in a reversible fashion? That is I want to be able to remove it and possible try another desktop (or windowmanager or what it is called).

Kindest regards
Johnny

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#12 Post by sunrat »

Does PulseEffects have all buttons missing or just some? Could be a missing dependency. I recall some time ago in MX it failed to install lsp-plugins but that was because MX does not install Recommends by default whereas Debian does.
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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#13 Post by johnnypanrike »

Thank you for your reply. It lacks the checkboxes to the left, a checkbox has to be clicked to be able to enable an effect, since no checkboxes work, I cannot enable any effect at all. Other buttons on Pulseeffects do work. I have installed lsp-plugins.

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Johnny

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#14 Post by sunrat »

Did you install PulseEffects from the Debian repository? It should have pulled in all the dependencies and recommends you need.
All I can think to suggest is start pulseeffects from a terminal and see if any error messages are shown.

I gave up using it as most of the effects are not useful for me when all I needed was EQ. Currently using PulseAudioParametricEQ for PA although it's harder to set up and one needs to know how to use a parametric EQ for decent results. https://t-5.eu/hp/Software/Pulseaudio%2 ... Equalizer/
My main system uses JACK with an LSP PEQ inserted over system out via a startup script. But that's even more complicated; you don't want to do that. :lol:
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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#15 Post by johnnypanrike »

Thank you for yet a another fast reponse.

Yes, I went with sudo apt-get install pulseeffects. My original suspicion is that I am running lxde which is very light weight, is there any chance that Pulseeffects cannot work properly with lxde? I google around on "pulseeffects dbus" based on the error message below and I do see references to Pulseeffects needing some gnome tings:

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pulseeffects requires gnome3-dconf #54341 - NixOS/nixpkgs
I started Pulseeffects at a terminal and got a whole slew of warnings saying

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(pulseeffects:11612): dconf-WARNING **: 16:02:11.044: failed to commit changes to dconf: Failed to execute child process “dbus-launch” (No such file or directory)
I am just copying one of the messages here. There are several hundred of lines like this interspersed with this line

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pulseeffects-WARNING **: 16:08:42.055: rnnoise plugin was not found!
which I googled on but I could not really find anything I could use given that I do not really understand the lingo.

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Johnny

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#16 Post by sunrat »

Looks like you don't have D-Bus running and PE requires it. I don't know how to set it up as it runs by default on my KDE system. As a wild guess try installing dbus and dconf-service packages. Could end up down a deep rabbit hole though.
That plugin error likely would only stop that effect from working.
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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#17 Post by johnnypanrike »

Hmmm, I do have dbus on the system, however I have tried to start it before starting Pulseeffects and it still did not work (same problem with greyed out check boxes). I then tried to restart dbus and my system crashed so I rebooted and was back to square one. Better not fiddle with it, it seems.

I have googled on this issue with greyed out checkboxes in Pulseeffects and it seems to be a known problem, and I found one solution to that problem however I am unable to use that solution because I am uncertain about how to apply it (I keep thinking in terms of installing things from outside the Debian repo but that is of course not good, we want this to work with Debian packages in this forum), maybe you can draw some conclusions from that post?

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=244157

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Johnny

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#18 Post by sunrat »

johnnypanrike wrote: 2022-10-09 21:16... maybe you can draw some conclusions from that post?

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=244157
That's the same solution we discussed above - lsp-plugins missing, so not the same issue as yours.
Sorry, I'm out of ideas.
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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#19 Post by johnnypanrike »

Ok, many thanks anyway.

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Re: How to get started with Audio in Linux

#20 Post by sunrat »

There's a suggestion the issue may be with the current version in Stable - 4.8.4 - https://github.com/wwmm/easyeffects/issues/1848
You could try building your own backport of 4.8.7 from Testing. https://wiki.debian.org/SimpleBackportCreation
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