usb-audio anyone?

[Janina Sajka]

You don't say what distro you're on.

In Fedora we can control which devices are which via /etc/modprobe.conf.
If you're not on Fedora, your controlling file is probably different.
Here's a snip from my modprobe.conf on a machine with four devices. The
device 0 is generally assumed to be the default:

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-card-0 index=0
options snd-hda-intel index=0
alias snd-card-1 snd-ca0106
options snd-card-1 index=1
options snd-ca0106 index=1
alias snd-card-2 snd-hdsp
options snd-card-2 index=2
options snd-hdsp index=2
alias snd-card-3 snd-usb-audio
options snd-card-3 index=3
options snd-usb-audio index=3


If you have the alsasound script in /etc/init.d, you can stop and
restart sound that way. It can bde a good way to have new devices where
you want them without rebooting.

It would be convenient if spd provided a way to specify which alsa
device it should be sending audio to. Perhaps it does, I don't know.


I do wonder whether you want Speakup in a single channel headset,
though. Of course, if you're only using it as a headphone, it's probably
not a problem. But, if you intend to use the microphone during voip
telephone conversations, adding Speakup might tend to confuse your
comprehension. Just a thought. I know it would work that way for me.

I have a Plantronix BlueTooth headset that I never got working with
alsa. The headphone worked (also single earpiece, single channel), but
the mic never worked for me.

I've recently acquired a Sennheiser PC155 headset and a Mackie 1202
analog audio mixer. I couldn't be more thrilled by what this allows me
to do:

*	All audio on my computer goes to the Mackie. For each audio
*	channel there's a button I can press to send output to the
*	headset or to the speakers.

*	The Sennheiser is both standard analog with a pair of 3.5 mm
*	plugs, headphone and mic. Using the provided USB dongle makes
*	this an audio device alsa immediately recognizes. It's a "gamer"
*	headset, so is stereo with pretty good audio specs.

*	I have the mic of my Sennheiser going all the way to a USB port
*	on my laptop. The stereo out of the USB I take to a line on my
*	Mackie. Then, I plug the 3.5 mm headphone of my Sennheiser into
*	the headphone out of the Mackie.

Now, I can have Speakup in my headset--or not. I can have a twinkle
mediated voip conversation on this head set. Indeed, it's now my
preferred device for my long teleconferences (of which I have many).
And, if I want Speakup and music in my headset, I can do that too--in
any combination--all by selecting which inputs on the Mackie are routed
where. Very, very convenient. I like it so much, I'm going to duplicate
this setup on my second workstation.

So, I don't know where you're going with your Plantronix, but I thought
I'd share my experience, and my recent success, with my setup. Hope it
helps.

Janina


Katie Durden writes:
> So I just bought a plantronics usb headset, i love it, except for the
> fact that i can't get it working under linux...
> 
> well i guess it is sort of working, i plug it in and the snd-usb-audio
> module is loaded, and if i explicitly use it, such as
> aplay -D hw:1,0 <file.wav>
> it will play via the headset. I should say i have had no luck getting
> it set as default, but that's not quite right either.
> using the in-kernel drivers, if i booted the system with headset
> plugged in, it would end up as default, and work, except that
> apparently the chip is single channel so alsa is using software
> mixing, and speech doesn't quite shut up before the next line starts
> talking. for example, its reading a line of text, i hit numpad seven
> to move up, it starts reading the prior line but doesn't interrupt the
> text that was previously being spoken for about a half second...so
> that's no good.
> 
> updated to the latest alsa, outside the kernel, and now i can't get
> speech at all if i manage to get usb-audio as default. I can play
> music just fine as default, but if I do spd-say, using the ibmtts
> module i get something about default being an invalid device.
> 
> So, has anyone had any success getting this working? i'm starting to
> go slightly insane trying to figure this out.
> 
> thanks
> 
> Katie D
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.202.595.7777;	sip:janina at a11y.org
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