[alsa-devel] HD-audio regression after commit 34588709af61be1550b4e2bcee5c85d0ac4f34d4

[Miro Hodak]

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 6:11 AM, Takashi Iwai <tiwai at suse.de> wrote:

> At Sat, 19 Jan 2013 00:33:52 -0500,
> Miro Hodak wrote:
> >
> > Testing latest updates in sound-unstable:
> >
> > commit f741c8a1f649379f8f3eb81119df2676c46075cf
> > Merge: d821c1e 164a7ad
> > Author: Takashi Iwai <tiwai at suse.de>
> > Date:   Fri Jan 18 18:30:00 2013 +0100
> >
> > Playback and capture appear to work correctly with one possible caveats:
> >
> > Item labeled "Front" controls the level of sound through the speakers. I
> > would expect that it would only control sound from front HP. This happens
> > whether Independent HP is on and off.
>
> When you look at other controls, there are "Surround", "Center", and
> "LFE", and these are mixer controls for other two line-out jacks.
> In that sense, "Front" is corresponding to the same group, the line
> out jack.
>
> You have an individual "Headphone" output.  Isn't it obvious?
>
>
> Takashi
>

Not always, most labels are one word long and can be open to different
interpretations. In alsamixer, ordering of capture controls is the
following:

Master  Headphon   PCM     Front   Front Mi  Surround  Center    LFE
Side  Line Boo  S/PDIF  S/PDIF D Auto-Mut Independ <Rear Mic>

and thus "Front" is next to "Front Mi" - that should connect at the front I
assume - rather then to other outputs at the back. Thus it is very easy to
get confused.

Here are outputs as specified in my MB manual and my attempt to pair them
to items in alsamixer (Capture only):

MB description                                   Alsa control (capture)
BACK PORTS:
Line In                                                  Line Boost (its
boost only, I know)
Front Speaker Out                             Front
Mic In                                                   Rear Mic Boost
Center/Subwoofer                             Center
Rear Speaker Out                             ???
Side Speaker Out                              Side

FRONT PORTS:
Headphone Out                                Headphone
Front Mic In                                        Front Mic Boost

There are two items that have not been assigned - Surround and LFE,
presumably one of them should correspond to the "Rear Speaker Out" for
which I could not identify ALSA control. Not being familiar with more than
2-channle audio, I do not know how to assign these.