HDMI ATI HDA SOUND - How I got HDMI sound working in #!

thanks a ton, this worked perfectly for me, and just so happened that my card was the same numbers so i just had to copy/paste lol

Maybe you can help me whit this also, i can play video whit sound whit vlc on my tv.
But all order things i want to play whit HDMI, like streaming video from youtube whit my browser whil not give any sound.
In alsamixer i can not find HDMI, i have a Intel card in my dell inspiron 1525 and running Linux Mint Debian Edition.

I know its a old topic but i hope i can stil use it.

Here is my output.

You can call me Bas in stead of Johan

To make life a little easier for you. Look at the output of aplay -l (it's a command that lists the soundcards as the ALSA system sees them). It says your HDMI output is recognized as the third device (3) on the soundcard zero (0). Create a file named .asoundrc in /home/yourusername. Paste this in:

pcm.!default {
type hw
card 0
device 3
}

Run

sudo service alsa-utils stop
sudo alsa force-reload
sudo service alsa-utils start

You should have the HDMI output as default.

Last edited by el_koraco (2011-12-13 12:39:56)

Depends on what you mean by easy. You can rename the /etc/asound.conf, then restart ALSA as described. Rename it back to /etc/sound.conf and restart ALSA to get HDMI back. There's no automatic hotplugging option. For that you would need Pulseaudio.

Last edited by el_koraco (2011-12-13 11:33:36)

Good job so far, but wouldn't setting it up in the alsamixer curse interface and saving it to the alsa daemon do the trick as well?

Yup, a slash too many. Editing original post...

This is my output:

kowloonboy@blackbox:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: AD198x Digital [AD198x Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

So for my .asoundrc I put this:

pcm.!default {
type hw
card 0
device 1
}

then

sudo service alsa-utils stop
sudo alsa force-reload
sudo service alsa-utils start

But after this, I didn't get any sound at all, so I deleted the .asoundrc. How can I get the digital to work?

That look like a cut down version of alsamixer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alsamixer.png

Last edited by kowloonboy (2011-12-13 23:02:47)

You can't do a live switch of the sound output in ALSA, the mixers only let you adjust sound on a card. You can have different programs using different sound cards in ALSA, but you can't have Youtube play from HDMI, and then switch to the laptop speakers on the fly.

You have to reset ALSA anyway, and you have to do it via CLI. Maybe make a few  aliases in your .bashrc

alias alsalaptop='sudo mv /etc/asound.conf /etc/asoundconfbak'
alias alsahdmi='sudo mv /etc/asouncconfbak /etc/asound.conf'
alias alsareset='sudo service alsa-utils stop && sudo alsa force-reload && sudo service alsa-utils start'

So you'd run alsalaptop to rename the file, and alsareset to reload ALSA, and alsahdmi followed by alsareset to move HDMI as the default card. Or try using Pulseaudio and have some of your apps, like the music or video player, use ALSA directly.