Sound on Arch

I understand there has been quite a few sound posts, but pretty much all of the advice seems to not yield any fruit for me. I've also had a look at the Arch Wiki, again no help.

I'm trying to get sound from my RPi running Arch Linux ARM.

I understand the sound is muted by default and that the sound drivers are very much experimental.

I've tried modprobe snd-bcm2835 as root. This seems to have little problems. However, when I then do lsmod I get only the following:

lsmod

Code: Select all

[root@Gimli ~]# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
ipv6                  221660  18
evdev                   6820  0

... no sign of the sound module.

However, I'm beginning to wonder if its down to the kernel version and incompatibility of the sound driver? doing uname -r gives me 3.1.9-15-ARCH+

However, when I then look at the sound module location:
cd lib/modules/3.1.9-10+/kernel/sound/arm
it shows: snd-bcm2835.ko

Is there an incompatibility? I feel I've exhausted all options, or have I missed something?

Its not really a huge deal anyway, it would just be nice to have a working sound card so as to be able to code stuff that makes use of sound. If there's no way of it working, I'll just live without it.

Normally I would be advising you to do updates (pacman -Syuf)(say n to upgrading pacman) but latest firmware wasn't built so hold fire.
It would have given linux-raspberrypi-3.1.9-21
A new rootfs is to be released soon

Normally I would be advising you to do updates (pacman -Syuf)(say n to upgrading pacman) but latest firmware wasn't built so hold fire.

I did do a pacman -Syu earlier this week...?

It would have given linux-raspberrypi-3.1.9-21
A new rootfs is to be released soon

interesting... any idea how soon?
I'll hold off doing anything more with the sound stuff for now.

I PM'd you
Only last nights kernel has the prob
You did reboot after pacman -Syu ? Can't understand how uname shows old kernel

ah no, no reboot... I'll reboot now though.

Indeed... uname -r now shows 3.1.9-20-ARCH+

Furthermore... now something has changed... modprobe snd-bcm2835 seems to have worked... as lsmod now shows the sound modules.

Code: Select all


[steve@Gimli ~]$ sudo modprobe snd-bcm2835
[steve@Gimli ~]$ lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
snd_bcm2835            15404  0
snd_pcm                51232  1 snd_bcm2835
snd_page_alloc          2612  1 snd_pcm
snd_timer              14528  1 snd_pcm
snd                    32336  3 snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_bcm2835
soundcore               3984  1 snd
ipv6                  221660  14
evdev                   6820  0
[steve@Gimli ~]$


After some more tinkering, it finally works

ahhh don't leave me hanging

"...after some tinkering...it works" please post what the tinkering was.

I have the modprobe etc running per your post but no sound out of audio jack. Any ideas on playing a wav file at command line over this port?

Thanks

If I recall correctly you need to use "amixer cset numid=3 1" to switch to the analogue output (0 = auto, 1 = analogue, 2 = hdmi). The amixer command is in the alsa-utils package by the way.

ahhh don't leave me hanging

"...after some tinkering...it works" please post what the tinkering was.

I have the modprobe etc running per your post but no sound out of audio jack. Any ideas on playing a wav file at command line over this port?

Thanks

Ahh, my bad, I didn't get sound on the Audio Jack, I'm using mine over HDMI for now. Monitor has a sound jack too - so I run a cable from that to the line in on my Windows PC so the sound works on my speakers.

The previous post offers a useful tip... I would also add that I did have to unmute the sound too - its muted by default. Also, installed mpg123 to playback an mp3 file.

Using mpg123 was the tip that got it working for me -- doesn't work in vlc.

Thanks!

Hello,

Had the same issue. "modprobe snd-bcm2835" would not work so I just rebooted and this time modprobe loads the module and then alsa/sound works as expected.

Thanks

I'm getting an issue as well, but I'm getting a no sound card found error when I try to start alsa. (I have unmuted aswell)

Nothing I try seems to work

1. Install software
sudo pacman -S alsa-firmware alsa-lib alsa-plugins alsa-utils

2. Turn sound device on
sudo modprobe snd-bcm2835

3. create /etc/modules-load.d/snd-bcm2835.conf
sudo echo "snd-bcm2835" >> /etc/modules-load.d/snd-bcm2835.conf

4. unmute and adjust volume with alsamixer (mine is already unmuted at this point)
sudo alsamixer

5. test sound
speaker-test -c 2

6. save adjustments
sudo alsactl store

This expands on what mckorr has written up
Sound on an Arch Linux ARM Raspberry Pi

Thank you for this, it looks cool, will add it to the tutorial list I am working on posting at wordpress when my pi arrives.

Now, if only I had my Pi and some speakers to try it out with.....

Hey, after reading all the detailed explanations of what is needed to get sound running on the Pi, I was pleasantly surprised when my first effort to play a WAV file on the Pi with mplayer worked without any extra effort, other than having installed the various additional recommended alsa packages in addition to installing mplayer. No special config files or tweaks were needed!

Do not have speakers yet, was using the audio jack with an ear bud, but it worked without a hitch! this is with the 8 Jan image, now superceded by the latest and greatest image created by Pepedog.

Now, once I get USB speakers, may have some work to do, but using audio jack, it is working great.

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=30830&p=267847