%general-entities; ]> $LastChangedBy$ $Date$ ALSA Utilities The ALSA Utilities package contains various utilities which are useful for controlling your sound card. Package Information Download (HTTP): Download (FTP): Download MD5 sum: &alsa-utils-md5sum; Download size: &alsa-utils-size; Estimated disk space required: &alsa-utils-buildsize; Estimated build time: &alsa-utils-time; ALSA Utilities Dependencies Required Install ALSA Utilities by running the following commands: ./configure && make This package does not come with a test suite. Now, as the root user: make install /etc/asound.state /etc/asound.state Use a bootscript to store the values at shutdown. alsa As the root user, install the init script /etc/rc.d/init.d/alsa included in the package. make install-alsa Note that all channels of your sound card are muted by default. You can use the alsamixer program from the ALSA Utilities to change this. The first time the dev.d script below is run, it will complain that there is no state in /etc/asound.state. You can prevent this by running the following commands as the root user: touch /etc/asound.state && alsactl store The volume settings will be restored from the saved state using a dev.d handler script that will execute when the device is detected during boot (when plugged in for USB devices). For versions of udev greater than 0.58, this script will not work by default. You'll have to add dev.d compatibility by adding a udev rules file that contains the line 'RUN="/sbin/udev_send_devd" to continue using the now depreciated dev.d system. While still the root user, create the dev.d script with the following commands: install -v -d -m755 /etc/dev.d/snd && cat > /etc/dev.d/snd/alsa.dev << "EOF" #!/bin/sh -e # This script is called by udevd when a change in a device is # detected, including initial detection upon bootup. # udevd sets the environment variables ACTION and DEVNAME. [ "$ACTION" = "add" ] || exit 0 DEV_BASENAME="${DEVNAME##*/}" N="${DEV_BASENAME#controlC}" case "$DEV_BASENAME" in controlC[0-7]) x=0 while [ $x -lt 20 ]; do # Wait up to 20 seconds for /usr to be mounted if necessary if [ -f /usr/sbin/alsactl ]; then /usr/sbin/alsactl restore $N exit 0 fi sleep 1 x=`expr $x + 1` done & # Put the while command in the background and continue ;; esac exit 0 EOF chmod -v 755 /etc/dev.d/snd/alsa.dev You may wish to do additional configuration on a per card basis. For example, if you wish to load soundfont banks, use the following sample script: #!/bin/sh -e # Begin /etc/dev.d/snd/[DEVICE]/asfxload.dev x=0 while [ $x -lt 20 ]; do # Wait up to 20 seconds for /usr to be mounted if necessary if [ -f /usr/bin/asfxload ]; then # Load 8 MB sountfont bank /usr/bin/asfxload /usr/share/sounds/sf2/8mbgmsfx.sf2 -D "[ALSA device string]" exit 0 fi sleep 1 x=`expr $x + 1` done & # Put the while command in the background and continue exit 0 # End /etc/dev.d/snd/[DEVICE]/asfxload.dev Installed Programs Installed Libraries Installed Directories aconnect, alsaconf, alsactl, alsamixer, amidi, amixer, aplay, aplaymidi, arecord, arecordmidi, aseqnet, aseqdump, iecset, and speaker-test None None Short Descriptions aconnect is a utility for connecting and disconnecting two existing ports in the ALSA sequencer system. aconnect alsaconf is a configuration tool which tries to detect the sound cards on your system and write a suitable configuration file for ALSA. alsaconf alsactl is used to control advanced settings for the ALSA sound card drivers. alsactl alsamixer is an ncurses-based mixer program for use with the ALSA sound card drivers. alsamixer amidi is used to read from and write to ALSA RawMIDI ports. amidi amixer allows command-line control of the mixers for the ALSA sound card drivers. amixer aplay is a command-line soundfile player for the ALSA sound card drivers. aplay aplaymidi is a command-line utility that plays the specified MIDI file(s) to one or more ALSA sequencer ports. aplaymidi arecord is a command-line soundfile recorder for the ALSA sound card drivers. arecord arecordmidi is a command-line utility that records a standard MIDI file from one or more ALSA sequencer ports. arecordmidi aseqdump is a command-line utility that prints the sequencer events it receives as text. aseqdump aseqnet is an ALSA sequencer client which sends and receives event packets over a network. aseqnet iecset is a small utility to set or dump the IEC958 (or so-called S/PDIF) status bits of the specified sound card via the ALSA control API. iecset speaker-test is a command-line speaker test tone generator for ALSA. speaker-test