Gentoo + HDMI+ gentoo-sources = no sound

[MxW]

Hey guys,
I have my Gentoo/XBMC setup working pretty well with the exception of
one large kink; no audio through HDMI.
I know the past guides have said that sound through HDMI was not
possible was not possible but I've done some research and noticed some
people got it working with Alsa-Drivers but I am using the gentoo-
sources 3.1.0 kernel with alsa modules already included so I was
wondering if anyone had any other way to get sound through HDMI.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

[Christian Lyra]

I do have sound with hdmi. Debian sid, kernel 2.6.32, xorg with noveau driver (not the best one but good enough for my use) and alsa. The only thing i had to do is mapping thr hdmi audio output to be the default one in alsa.

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--
Christian Lyra
PoP-PR/RNP

[MxW]

Christian,I am running kernel 3.1.0, xorg with nvidia-drivers and
alsa.  Could running noveau drivers be the key?I have wifi runnign so
this is honestly the last thing to get this running proper (well,
apart from lirc but that's not a crucial task)

[Christian Lyra]

On Sunday, October 30, 2011, MxW <mwajs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Christian,I am running kernel 3.1.0, xorg with nvidia-drivers and
> alsa.  Could running noveau drivers be the key?I have wifi runnign so
> this is honestly the last thing to get this running proper (well,
> apart from lirc but that's not a crucial task)

I guess not. Aplay -l shows hdmi as one output of the intel hda driver. Btw it's not kernel 2.6.32 but 3.0. How did you manage to get nvidia drivers working? I tried with some versions and either they not complie or they compile but freeze the macjine when i tried to run.
May i send you my lircd.conf?

[Robert Baptista]

I believe so. From what I remember if you want to use nvidia drivers with hdmi audio you needed to use an old and very specific version

Robert

[MxW]

That sounds great Christian, sure thing!

I got my drivers working by compiling them in gentoo then either
running nvidia-xconfig and altering xorg.conf slightly or starting
from scratch (depending on which time, hah). The only time I had
trouble with my nvidia drivers was when I was using an example
configuration file. I knew that the culprit was something wtihin the
Screen Section so I tore it down and began re-adding line by line.
Wound up being
Option "UseEvents" "1"
which is funny since the example was from an aTV guide. Other than
that I've had no problems.


Robert,
That's what I've read also but every single post on the subject was at
least 2 years old so I was hoping something had changed since then.
I had posted a thread on the Gentoo forums and one of the post linked
to this:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/gpu-hdmi-audio-document/gpu-hdmi-audio.html#_hd_audio_architecture

with another confirming that the aforementioned link worked for him.

On Oct 30, 6:15 am, Christian Lyra <l...@pop-pr.rnp.br> wrote:

[Christian Lyra]

Hi MxW

> That sounds great Christian, sure thing!
>
> I got my drivers working by compiling them in gentoo then either
> running nvidia-xconfig and altering xorg.conf slightly or starting
> from scratch (depending on which time, hah).  The only time I had
> trouble with my nvidia drivers was when I was using an example
> configuration file. I knew that the culprit was something wtihin the
> Screen Section so I tore it down and began re-adding line by line.

Do you know what version of nvidia-drivers are you using? what about
xorg? which version? I´m using debian, so things are kind different
:-).

--
Christian Lyra
PoP-PR/RNP

[MxW]

Christian,
I received your email and wanted to say thanks.

I am using nvidia-drivers version 285.05.09-r1

I will send you my xorg.conf here in a second.

[Christian Lyra]

Hi,

> I am using     nvidia-drivers version 285.05.09-r1
>

A little update about this issue. I was able to compile and get Xorg
working with nvidia-285.05.09. Aplay shows the hdmi device, alsamixer
shows all channels unmuted, and mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw:0.3
file.mp3 seems to play but no sound comes out. If you dont start xorg
on boot, mplayer works, then if you start xorg it stopped to work and
my system froze... Seems to be in the same state as the last time i
tried ( a year ago...).

So... I´m back to the nouveau driver.

--
Christian Lyra
PoP-PR/RNP

[Bharath Ramesh]

AFAIK nvidia drivers 100.14.19 and 100.14.23 are the only set of
drivers that support hdmi audio. If my understanding of the problem is
right this has to do something with the way apple tv actually adds
audio to the hdmi signal. I believe that is actually being performed
by the SIL HDMI transmitter and not nvidia hardware. As a result when
X starts nvidia driver in fact kills whatever HDMI audio is present.
Probably the only reason nouveau drivers work as they dont support
HDMI audio. Switching to nouveau really doesnt help as you loose quite
a bit of functionality. I dont think nouveau supports dds images and
1080p24 output as of yet, which are important features for xbmc imho.
I always found that the xbmc UI is not as fluid compared to nvidia
drivers. I have tried to compile the 100.14.19 drivers on newer
kernels and have failed. I would also love to find a solution to this
problem with newer drivers, as this has limited me to be running
ubuntu hardy.

--
Bharath

[MxW]

Ok guys, so I had put the audio issues on the backburner for a couple
days because my wifi wasn't working without ethernet being plugged in
as well but everything is sorted out. Now I'm back to this and wanted
to say thank you for the responses. I'd love to have audio over hdmi
but by the looks of it have to settle for via rca. The main reason
why I would rather use hdmi is because I want to hook up my external
drive and play all my FLAC audio. Now that I think about it, rca
might be a plus because I could run it through my receiver (no HDMI
and channel surf) instead of running it through my TV. My only
question is; will audio quality diminish and if so; how badly?

[MxW]

I just wanted to repost what I posted on the Gentoo forum.

so apparently Audio over HDMI in regards to this application is just
not possible. The workarounds are just not logical and the RCA out
seems like the easier choice

I'm following this page:
http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/wiki/UpdateAudioDriver

but between the fact that I'm in over my head, the page is for Ubuntu,
and is pretty dated....progress has been slow.

Any words of wisdom?


Also, according to [url=http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/wiki/
PostMythbuntuHardy#AUDIO]this[/url] and a few other pages, apparently
adding said option to either /etc/modprobe.d/options /etc/modprobe.d/
alsa.conf or /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base will get RCA audio out working
without the need for a patch but none of these files are present and
creating them does nothing. :/

[Christian Lyra]

hi,

> Also, according to [url=http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/wiki/
> PostMythbuntuHardy#AUDIO]this[/url] and a few other pages, apparently
> adding said option to either /etc/modprobe.d/options /etc/modprobe.d/
> alsa.conf or /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base will get RCA audio out working
> without the need for a patch but none of these files are present and
> creating them does nothing. :/
>

before the nouveau driver i was using the RCA output. And it worked
fine and without patches. I cant remember about the modules options
but i guess they are not need on more recent kernels.

--
Christian Lyra
PoP-PR/RNP