My recipe is quite simple: if it works, don't fix it. I'm still on KDE3 and Amarok 1.4, no Pulseaudio, just Alsa.
Regards Miguel Angel 2013/8/8 Martin Steigerwald <mar...@lichtvoll.de> > Using phonon-backends mailing list as I didn´t found any user related > phonon > mailing list, if people who can help with phonon are subscribed to Amarok > mailing list, feel free to drop phonon-backends mailing list from Cc. > > > Hi! > > Once upon a time I had a ThinkPad T23 with KDE 3 and Amarok 1.4, first > without, > then with Sonica Theater USB 1.1 sound card. And it just played music. > Reliable, even after some kernel scheduler improvements I tested for Ingo > Molnar without any glitches even when I moved around windows or did > whatever > on that box. It just played and the world was good. There have been issues > once in a while, but generally it just worked. Also sound worked just > nicely > after hibernation. For the USB sound card for a time I had to unload usb > sound > module from kernel before hibernation and load it again (with TuxOnIce and > hibernate script back then). > > Then I switched to KDE 4.2 and Amarok 2 and Phonon. And since then I cannot > remember to have had this "it just works" reliability that I had with KDE 3 > and Amarok 1.4 without Phonon. > > I know a rant could start this way – and well to some extent I admit this > is a > rant –, but I will try not to accuse anyone, I am just at the point where I > realize: I can give Linux Performance training, I can build a kernel from > git, > test changes, build Debian packages and whatnot. But I can´t seem to make > my > Amarok jukebox setup reliable. I do not know in which layer to look. I do > not > know much about meaningful debugging. All I can do right now is to try this > and that and this without any actual clue and hope it helps. So I reach out > for help. > > I do this on list, until I have any means to provide meaningful bug > reports. I > think I deal with several bugs. I am willing to work from this, there may > be > days of inactivity in between, due to real life stuff taking precendence, > but I > am willing to invest some time and energy once again, *if* there is a > reasonable chance to get back reliably working system. > > I am even willing to replace hardware. If a ThinkPad or netbookt with > Intel HD > audio provides a similar sound quality to that USB sound card, I´d buy one > and > ditch the USB sound card. If a USB 2 based sound card is likely to work > better, I´d buy one. I do not insist on the exact hardware, a ThinkPad T6x > with Intel HD Audio costs less than 200 Euro used, so what gives. > > But I do like to get to a reliably working setup within a *reasonable* > amount > of time. Heck, it just needs to play music. My CD player does it, my > Rockbox > based Sansa e260v1 does it. It can´t be that difficult. And I like to keep > Amarok. I am used to it, its a decent player software, it gets song texts, > wikipedia and well has a nice GUI. I like to continue using it. > > > My basic requirements are: > > - If I press play it plays sound. No discussions, no errors. Just play > sound. > As my CD player does. I play music mostly for recreational purposes so I am > not willing to fiddle with things on a regular basis just to have it play > my > music. I am not willing to *fight* with my Amarok music jukebox to make it > behave. > > - If playing sound, play sound *fluently*. No dropouts, no hangs, no > interference noise. Just play. > > - On hibernating stop sound, on resuming continue playing where you > stopped. > Or well if not continuing right away, let me continue with pressing play > again. For the time being, I´d even press stop before hibernation and play > after it. > > - I want to have Amarok running for days and weeks with hibernation cycles > in > between. I don´t want it to crash after resuming or something like that. > > > Current setup is: ThinkPad T42 with Pentium M 1.8 GHz which should be > plenty > to play MP3, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC in decent quality. I do have the Sonica > Theater USB sound card, cause at least with the ThinkPad T23 where I was > able > to hear harddisk sounds in the internal audio output the sound quality was > just so much better with that USB sound card. Its a USB 1.1 standard 7.1 > sound > capable soundcard, but I just use stereo, no 7.1 sound which might overload > USB 1.1 bus. I use a old, good quality Kenwood receiver. > > Software wise I use Debian Sid with KDE SC 4.10.5 and Amarok 2.7.1-1 and > phonon 4.6.0.0-3 with phonon-backend-vlc 0.6.2-2 with ALSA. I didn´t use > gstreamer as it skipped tracks and whatnot. I do not remember exactly what > all > happened with it, but it didn´t work for me. Kernel is 3.10-1-686-pae from > official experimental debian package. > > I do not use Pulseaudio 4 right now cause it still does not detect the USB > sound card at all times, spamming logs with "usb_set_interface_failed" > messages. I reported this once, Lennart even answered me back to my bug > report > and I admit I did not follow up then, cause what he asked me to do would > have > take some time to do and it was not the only bug with PulseAudio back > then. I > was just so annoyed by PulseAudio back then that I apt-get purge´d it. I > would > be willing to follow-up with this, as it seems that Pulseaudio 4 is the > first > Pulseaudio *ever* that is able to play *fluent* sound on the ThinkPad T42. > With > Pulseaudio 3 still I had sound drops longer than 20 seconds (this is *no* > joke). > > .kde/share/config/phonondevicesrc has: > > > [AudioDevice_/org/kde/solid/udev/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb3/3-2/3-2:1.0/sound/card1/ > pcmC1D0c:capture] > cardName=Sonica Theater (USB Audio) > deleted=false > deviceNumber=0 > hotpluggable=true > iconName=audio-card > index=-8 > initialPreference=36 > isAdvanced=false > > > It has similar entries for this sound card at least a dozen of times, one > of > it must be the sound card at the top of the device list in phonon kcm. > > > A snippet of lsusb, I can attach or pastebin completely output somewhere. > > Bus 003 Device 005: ID 0763:2007 Midiman M-Audio Sonica Theater > Device Descriptor: > bLength 18 > bDescriptorType 1 > bcdUSB 1.10 > bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) > bDeviceSubClass 0 > bDeviceProtocol 0 > bMaxPacketSize0 8 > idVendor 0x0763 Midiman > idProduct 0x2007 M-Audio Sonica Theater > bcdDevice 1.01 > iManufacturer 1 > iProduct 2 > iSerial 0 > bNumConfigurations 1 > > > > Current symptoms: > > - If I stop playback manually before hibernating and start it after > hibernating Amarok seems to play sound but I cannot hear anything. If I > then > press stop Amarok crashes. In Systemsettings audio test I can play back > sound. > I will install debug packages and see whether I get get a meaningful > backtrace. > > - Although playback seems to be quite fluent recently, I still have casual > dropouts for some reconds. On the ThinkPad T23 I had more dropouts than I > now > have on the ThinkPad T42, but heck the hardware is certainly able to play > back > some audio, isn´t it? My Amiga 4000 played MP3 it with a 50 MHz 68060, the > Rockbox based Sansa can do it even with Ogg Vorbis, so… > > - Sometimes a loud annoying noise is in the audio. I had this today while > taking a bath. I jumped up to run into the living room to lower the volume > as > it was not something I´d like to expose to my neighbours for longer than > necessary (USB sound driver issue?). If I unplug USB sound card and plug it > back in again, it works again. > > > > So how to proceed? I am especially interested in: > > What is working for you? > > I highly suspect that its working for a lot of people. So what is different > with your setup? > > Does anybody have a laptop with Amarok on top of his/her Hi-Fi equipment to > play music, and hibernates and resumes it just fine and all is working? > Then I > would greatly appreciate a detailed description of the setup. > > > Any hints on where to start debugging? > > Any hints on a best practice setup? > > VLC or gstreamer? > > Pulseaudio or not? I´d prefer to first get a stable setup *without* > Pulseaudio > to have one layer less to debug, but I am also willing to test out > Pulseaudio > again, especially as with 4.0 at least the unbearing latency, music > dropouts > issues have gone. (With VLC and Pulseaudio on this Sandybridge Dual core > based > ThinkPad T520 audio playback on playing a DVD start 5-10 seconds after the > video playback has started. Without Pulseaudio it started *immediately*. > On a > *Sandybridge* based laptop. There is no hardware reason for that – the > hardware is certainly capable, heck it can encode MP3 as fast as the audio > CD > grabber delivers it. This again is no joke.) > > USB sound card or not? > > What versions of everything? > > Actually I think thats already too many questions. Why do I even have to > decide on this? I wouldn´t like to explain something like this to my > father or > any other casual computer user. > > IMHO this complexity is a huge mess, unless there is a default that will > just > work. Layers upon layers upon layers. Configuration choices over > configuration > choices. > > > I just want a jukebox and I want it to work. What are the magic > ingredients? > What is known to work? > > Thanks, > -- > Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de > GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7 > _______________________________________________ > Amarok mailing list > Amarok@kde.org > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/amarok >
_______________________________________________ Amarok mailing list Amarok@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/amarok
