[OpenIndiana-discuss] No sound in OpenIndiana

[Udo Grabowski (IMK)]

On 17-12-2024 04:33, Garrett Fuller wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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. I have been using TiMidity++ to play and convert MIDI files 
> (which I can only listen to on another computer), but would like to have 
> greater audio playback capabilities if possible.
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

This is indeed tricky and requires extensive fiddling.

System/Preferences/Personal/Startup Applications: enable (add it if
missing)
Volume Control (command '/usr/bin/mate-volume-control-status-icon')
and
pulseaudio sound system (command is '/usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11')
If 'ps -ef' shows no pulesaudio process after relogin, you have to
alter that script:
After
   if [ x"$DISPLAY" != x ] ; then
add
     /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start >/dev/null
before the 'pactl' stuff (that's a hack, don't know how to solve
this properly). Maybe a 'pkill pulseaudio' is also necessary after
the pactl commands before the exit 0 in the 'stop' chain, mine works
without.

Applications/System Tools/dconf editor: set org/mate/desktop/sound
default-mixer-device to '/dev/mixer1', volume-overamplifiable on.

logout/login
ps -ef should show '/usr/bin/pulseaudio --start'
volume control icon should appear on the upper panel right. Open
its preferences with right mouse click. Hardware should show either
both devices or nothing, select audiohd#1 if something appears.
input and output should have audiohd#1 preselected. Volume-Ctrl and
'mute' should work. 'applications' should show, e.g., firefox if playing
a video on youtube.

For volume and input/output control, use these:
audioctl list-devices
audioctl show-device audiohd#<n>  (you've already identified it as #1)
audioctl show-control -d audiohd#1 (gets the current volume settings)
audioctl set-control -v -d audiohd#1 <controlname> <volume-setting>
[audioctl save-controls -d audiohd#1 -f <file> (defaults in .audioctl/)]
[audioctl load-controls  -d audiohd#1 <file>  (loaded from default)]

If you have multimedia-keys on your keyboard, goto
System/Preferences/Hardware/keyboard shortcuts, at the lower end
are the multimedia keys. Click on the setting and type the respective
key, it should appear if the keys are recognized by the system (use
xev to identify what that key is emitting, this can be adapted with
.Xmodmap entries like (here, a Sun type7 keyboard)
keycode 141 = XF86AudioMute
keycode 142 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 143 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
and loaded via .bashrc with 'xmodmap .Xmodmap'

Still, I regularly loose the multimedia-keys in mate, so that's
another problem area ...

For playing audio and video files, I usually use mplayer (which isn't
in the pkg list anymore), or smplayer (it compiles relatively
straightforward from sources). From the pkgsrc repository, there's mpv
available, which is based on mplayer. Install all the library/audio and
library/video stuff you need. firefox also depends on all the ffmpeg
base to play video correctly.

Hope that helps.
-- 
Dr.Udo Grabowski  Inst.of Meteorology & Climate Research IMK-ASF-SAT
https://www.imk-asf.kit.edu/english/sat.php
KIT - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology          https://www.kit.edu
Postfach 3640,76021 Karlsruhe,Germany T:(+49)721 608-26026 F:-926026