[?]Are Realtek Audio Drivers for Linux available for use

Susmita/Rajib

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Mar 12, 2021, 5:00:07 AM3/12/21

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To,
The Team Debian-User,
debia...@lists.debian.org,
Debian.org

My dear illustrious Team Leaders,

Good morning.

Model (India): Lenovo IdeaPad 320-15ISK 80XH01FKIN 15.6-inch Laptop
(6th Gen Core i3-6006U/4GB/2TB/Integrated Graphics), Platinum Grey

The OSes are Debian (Stretch) 9.11.0 Lxde and Knoppix 8.6.0, in 64-bit
operation.

All details/specifications of my used Lenovo laptop are also in the
Debian Forums post (to avoid clutter and maintain centralised notes).

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=146606&p=722991

I am searching for Realtek audio drivers for Linux for the Hardware
details: "Lenovo ideapad 320-15ISK" LNVNB161216, and "Realtek
Audio_6.0.1.8652.A.",otherwise, I am afraid that the audio won't be be
to operate in duplex mode, i.e., won't record audio while playing it.

I have posted the topic in Debian Forum here:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=149074, but as said
earlier too, it is difficult to find solution in the Debian forum.

I assure you that, as always, I shall post a [Solved] reply in the
Debian Forums at the end of this experience for future users.

Regards,
Rajib Bandopadhyay
A dedicated Debian and Knoppix user

deloptes

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Mar 12, 2021, 6:20:05 AM3/12/21

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Susmita/Rajib wrote:

> I am searching for Realtek audio drivers for Linux for the Hardware
> details: "Lenovo ideapad 320-15ISK" LNVNB161216, and "Realtek
> Audio_6.0.1.8652.A.",otherwise, I am afraid that the audio won't be be
> to operate in duplex mode, i.e., won't record audio while playing it.

https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Lenovo/IdeaPad%20300-15ISK

what is your expectation? it seems the audio works OOTB

You should also upgrade your stretch, BTW.

Susmita/Rajib

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Mar 12, 2021, 2:40:04 PM3/12/21

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On 12/03/2021, deloptes wrote:
> To: debia...@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: [?]Are Realtek Audio Drivers for Linux available for use
> From: deloptes <d***s...@gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2021 12:13:28 +0100
> ... ... [snipped] ... ... [snipped] ... ...

>
> https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Lenovo/IdeaPad%20300-15ISK
>
> what is your expectation? it seems the audio works OOTB
>
> You should also upgrade your stretch, BTW.

Thank you for replying to my query.

Expectation is enabling Duplex audio. Record while playing AV stream.
With pulseaudio Volume Control. Isn't possible presently.

If possible, could this link be looked at please?:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=146840

Any suggestion, except upgrading from Stretch? When Buster reaches End
of Active Update (i.e., becomes oldstable), then Stretch shall be
updated to Buster.

Best

deloptes

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Mar 12, 2021, 6:10:05 PM3/12/21

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Susmita/Rajib wrote:

> Thank you for replying to my query.
>
> Expectation is enabling Duplex audio. Record while playing AV stream.
> With pulseaudio Volume Control. Isn't possible presently.
>

I am not sure what you mean - the use case "Record while playing AV stream"
seems trivial.
You should describe what you are doing. I doubt PA has to do something with
that.
What applications and how are they accessing your audio device.

> If possible, could this link be looked at please?:
> http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=146840
>
> Any suggestion, except upgrading from Stretch? When Buster reaches End
> of Active Update (i.e., becomes oldstable), then Stretch shall be
> updated to Buster.

it is hard to recreate your use case, but AFAIR the PA in stretch was
version 11 and had multiple issues.
I recall I had to compile 12 to get things working there.
It is your choice however. It looks like you have to wait for couple of
months

regards

David Wright

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Mar 12, 2021, 8:10:03 PM3/12/21

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On Sat 13 Mar 2021 at 00:09:29 (+0100), deloptes wrote:

> Susmita/Rajib wrote:
> >
> > Expectation is enabling Duplex audio. Record while playing AV stream.
> > With pulseaudio Volume Control. Isn't possible presently.
>
> I am not sure what you mean - the use case "Record while playing AV stream"
> seems trivial.

I (≠ OP) don't use pulseaudio as a matter of course. It's meant to
give benefits, but can add undesired complexity. So I generally
stick with ALSA.

The downside, though, is that although alsamixer may show that there's
a Capture device (slider) in the Capture (F4) window, it will only
record sounds from the Microphone, and not from, say, the browser.

Most of the time, this doesn't matter, as I have developed several
techniques over the years for capturing Transport Stream files from
the cache, and assembling them into seamless live video, and even
slurping files out of the browser's /proc/<PID>/fd thingies when
youtube_dl fails to download a video.

But nowadays, there are some audio links that play quite happily
without leaving any trace that I can find. Which leaves only the
option of recording the soundcard output. Some computers have both
LineOut and LineIn, and these can be connected together, but that's
not a very good solution in terms of noise.

My latest acquisition, a Dell Precision T3500, fell into my lap just
as my old Pentium III (Yamaha ymf740c) expired, and has the similar
ability to record from the browser (I suppose that's the PCM). It's
as tedious as recording from, say, vinyl, as you have to top, tail,
and possibly split all the recordings you make. There's also the
business of setting levels, and so on; all unnecessary operations
if only you could grab the digital output.

But it's the best I can manage. Fortunately I haven't met this
problem with videos that I want, only audio recordings.

Any idea what technologies are being used by these websites?
I don't want to give examples as I'm not sure they condone
recording their output, and some of the credentials I use are
decidedly ancient and technically should have been expired.
(I think of myself as a visiting alumnus.)

> You should describe what you are doing. I doubt PA has to do something with
> that.

I've read that PA is supposed to be able to make connections in
software that aren't offered by the hardware, rather like JACK
is also meant to do. I'm guessing that might be the OP's interest.

> What applications and how are they accessing your audio device.

In my case, that's FF. I sometimes read here that FF needs PA to
produce sound from webpages, but I've never found that to be so.
I do usually have to fiddle with magic spells to share ALSA (with
~/.alsa-configs/asound.conf), allowing two users' browsers (FF),
and their own mpv programs, all to play videos simultaneously on
one Xserver. (IOW an almighty cacophony.)

I hope my use case is close enough to the OP's to be a useful sidebar.

Cheers,
David.

Stefan Monnier

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Mar 12, 2021, 11:10:05 PM3/12/21

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> But nowadays, there are some audio links that play quite happily
> without leaving any trace that I can find. Which leaves only the
> option of recording the soundcard output. Some computers have both
> LineOut and LineIn, and these can be connected together, but that's
> not a very good solution in terms of noise.

I must admit that I haven't looked at ALSA for quite some years and
I consider computers to be devices which should ideally stay silent, so
my knowledge of audio is quite limited, but I've recorded the "Monitor"
of the output with good success when recording a Jitsi session (using
`vokoscreen`, IIRC).

Admittedly, I was using pulseaudio, so maybe this is a PA feature not
available in ALSA?

Stefan

Susmita/Rajib

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Mar 12, 2021, 11:20:05 PM3/12/21

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On 13/03/2021, David Wright <d***s@l***n.co.uk> wrote:
> To: debia...@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: [?]Are Realtek Audio Drivers for Linux available for use

> From: David Wright <d***s@li***n.co.uk>
> Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2021 19:08:10 -0600
> Message-id: <[🔎] 2***6...@axis.corp>
> Reply-to: debia...@lists.debian.org

> ... ... [snipped] ... ... [snipped] ... ...

> I (≠ OP) don't use pulseaudio as a matter of course. It's meant to
> give benefits, but can add undesired complexity. So I generally
> stick with ALSA.