[OpenIndiana-discuss] No sound in OpenIndiana

Tue Dec 17 04:57:32 UTC 2024

In regard to: [OpenIndiana-discuss] No sound in OpenIndiana, Garrett Fuller...:

> I am new to the world of OpenIndiana. I've enjoyed it for the most part so 
> far, but have had a couple problems. The most frustrating of which is the lack 
> of audio output on my ThinkPad W541. There is no playback from the laptop 
> speakers or any output through the headphone port, no matter what I do or the 
> volume settings.
>
> The only time I have got sound to play is while attempting to diagnose the 
> issue using the "audiotest" command.
>
> After running 'audioctl list-devices', I got audiohd#0 and audiohd#1.
>
> While running 'audiotest,' nothing played under audiohd#0 and it took a long 
> time for the test to conclude. Sound did play through the headphone port
> using audiohd#1, and the test concluded as it should. However, after the
> test concluded, I still have no audio from anything.

The good news: if audiotest eventually output audio via audiohd#1, then
it's not a driver issue and you do have audio.

The trick is going to be getting everything to use it.  There can be
multiple layers involved (gstreamer, pulseaudio, OSS) and sometimes it's
difficult to know which layer isn't doing the right thing.

I'm not at my OI desktop right now and I can't find my notes on what I had
to do to select the right audio output, but you probably want to look at

 	mate-settings
 	pactl

(pactl is from PulseAudio).  Check the man page for pactl, use 'pactl
list' to see what the current sound sink (output device) is, and you may
want to try changing it to your other device, to see if that makes a
difference.

Once you get things working, my experience is they work reliably.  On
a system with multiple inputs and outputs, it can just be tricky getting
things set up.

Also, not *hearing* audio is surprisingly often because of volume issues.
Make sure it's not defaulting to a very low volume.

> Also, when I get audio working, is there a software package that will
> allow me to playback MP3, WAV, Ogg/Vorbis or AU formats? I looked for
> VLC Media Player and ffmpeg on the package repository but didn't see
>anything.

The default install avoids any packages that may have licensing issues
in certain jurisdictions.  You can add an additional non-default publisher
(what Linux distros might call a 'repo'), 'hipster-encumbered', and install
packages from there that will enable a lot of stuff like MP3, AV1, etc.

$ pkg list | egrep -i 'hipster-enc'
audio/faac (hipster-encumbered)                   1.30-2023.0.0.1            i--
audio/faad2 (hipster-encumbered)                  2.11.1-2023.0.0.0          i--
codec/dav1d (hipster-encumbered)                  1.5.0-2024.0.0.0           i--
codec/opencore-amr (hipster-encumbered)           0.1.6-2023.0.0.0           i--
library/audio/gstreamer1/plugin/bad (hipster-encumbered) 1.24.9-2024.0.0.0          i--
library/audio/gstreamer1/plugin/libav (hipster-encumbered) 1.24.9-2024.0.0.0          i--
library/audio/gstreamer1/plugin/ugly (hipster-encumbered) 1.24.9-2024.0.0.0          i--
library/audio/liba52 (hipster-encumbered)         0.8.0-2022.1.0.0           i--
library/audio/libdca (hipster-encumbered)         0.0.7-2022.0.0.1           i--
library/audio/libgsm (hipster-encumbered)         1.0.22-2023.0.0.1          i--
library/audio/libmad (hipster-encumbered)         0.15.1.2-2023.0.0.3        i--
library/audio/libmpcdec (hipster-encumbered)      1.2.6-2022.0.0.1           i--
library/ffmpeg-6 (hipster-encumbered)             6.1.2-2024.0.0.1           i--
library/ffmpeg-7 (hipster-encumbered)             7.1-2024.0.0.1             i--
library/video/libbluray (hipster-encumbered)      1.3.4-2023.0.0.0           i--
library/video/libdvbpsi (hipster-encumbered)      1.3.3-2022.0.0.1           i--
library/video/libdvdnav (hipster-encumbered)      6.1.1-2023.0.0.0           i--
library/video/libdvdread (hipster-encumbered)     6.1.3-2023.0.0.0           i--
library/video/libmms (hipster-encumbered)         0.6.4-2023.0.0.2           i--
library/video/libmpeg2 (hipster-encumbered)       0.5.1-2023.0.0.2           i--
library/video/x264 (hipster-encumbered)           0.164.0.20230128-2023.0.0.0 i--
library/video/x265 (hipster-encumbered)           4.1-2024.0.0.0             i--
library/video/x265-36 (hipster-encumbered)        3.6-2024.0.0.0             i--
library/video/x265-40 (hipster-encumbered)        4.0-2024.0.0.0             i--
library/video/x265-41 (hipster-encumbered)        4.1-2024.0.0.0             i--
library/video/xvid (hipster-encumbered)           1.3.7-2022.0.0.1           i--
media/vlc (hipster-encumbered)                    3.0.21-2024.0.0.0          i--
video/ffmpeg (hipster-encumbered)                 7.1-2024.0.0.1             i--
video/rtmpdump (hipster-encumbered)               2.4-2022.0.0.2             i--

You'll especially want the gstreamer1/plugin/bad , as that has MP3 plugin
for gstreamer, which MATE and a lot of other audio/video apps will use.

See:  https://www.openindiana.org/packages/

Instructions for adding a publisher are at the bottom of that page, and
the URL for hipster-encumbered is there too.  Note you can use 'https'
rather than http, and I recommend doing so.  Also, I *highly* recommend
you make hipster-encumbered "non-sticky".  See the "pkg" man page for more
info.

Good luck & welcome!

Tim
-- 
Tim Mooney                                             Tim.Mooney at ndsu.edu
Enterprise Computing & Infrastructure /
Division of Information Technology    /                701-231-1076 (Voice)
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105-5164