espeakup alsa errors

Wed Jun 29 19:36:41 EDT 2016

The best way around this is not to use hw: values if at all possible. Just 
call the card by name. To find out what the names are just run: cat 
/proc/asound/cards and you'll see the card names in brackets. Just use the 
name as seen in the brackets without the space padding and things should 
work as expected
even if the card indexes happen to move around on reboot.
The same goes for setting the default system sound card or the default card 
for a specific user.
To set the system default you'd edit /etc/asound.conf and add something 
like:
pcm.!default {
     type hw
card Audigy
}
On my system this sets the default sound card to the sound blaster audigy.
Or to set the default card for a specific user you'd put that code in 
.asoundrc in the user's home directory.
Depending on what program you're using the syntax for specifying a device by 
name can get a bit tricky (upper and lower case letters matter) but it 
should be possible.
This all assumes the only problem you're having is with the card indexes 
moving around. A bigger problem can be pulse audio trying to take exclusive 
control of a card. In that case the only thing to do is disable pulse audio 
or figure out how to get whatever you're using to work with it. It's been my 
experience that things just work if pulse audio is completely disabled but 
this may effect some things if you're using the gui.
My system has 7 sound cards so I've had to learn the hard way how to make 
alsa maintain order.
On Wed, 29 Jun 2016, Janina Sajka wrote:

> Could someone repost the link? I want to bookmark it and have
> inadvertently killed the email that included it.
>
> Also, it's very unfortunate that we need to rely on udev to definitively
> assign sound devices as default, or a particular hw: value. That makes
> lots of things hard, including scripts and including assigning certain
> devices to certain kinds of work, like hw:0 for speakup, and hw:8 for
> high end audio editing, as an example.
>
> The only reason udev is a probably for this is that how to do this isn't
> well documented, and there's no tool I know of that front ends the task
> properly.
>
> PS: We should also be able to clearly define which HW: devices are for
> pulse, and which for jack, and which for alsa only. Is that too much to
> ask?
>
> Janina
>
>
> Kirk Reiser writes:
>> I will say that the link posted pointed to some interesting
>> information. I was having a very similar problem on my Chromebook. It
>> took a long time to figure out that it was because alsa was trying to
>> talk to the HDMI and not letting me get espeakup running. The thing
>> that sort of bugs me is that udev should be smart enough to know if it
>> doesn't see an hdmi device connected it should ignore it and move on
>> to the next available device. Oh well. Alsa documentation has always
>> been the pits.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 29 Jun 2016, Janina Sajka wrote:
>>
>>> No, dmix is part of alsa.
>>>
>>>
>>> Jude DaShiell writes:
>>>> If I have this right, dmix is part of pulseaudio.
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 28 Jun 2016, Kristoffer Gustafsson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2016 17:21:07
>>>>> From: Kristoffer Gustafsson <kg.kristoffer at gmail.com>
>>>>> Reply-To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
>>>>>     <speakup at linux-speakup.org>
>>>>> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. <speakup at linux-speakup.org>
>>>>> Subject: Re: espeakup alsa errors
>>>>>> Hi.
>>>>> I've just discovered something. I can't run any tts at all i think.
>>>>> I'm trying festival too, and I get much errors about pcm-dmix, cannot
>>>>> open slave device.
>>>>> Everything worked fine before, and now on this computer... :(
>>>>> /Kristoffer
>>>>>> 2016-06-28 21:12 GMT+02:00, Chris Brannon
>>>> <chris at the-brannons.com>:
>>>>>> Kristoffer Gustafsson <kg.kristoffer at gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>>>>> but when I type espeakup I get just much errors about
>>>> alsa.
>>>>>>> What is going on here?
>>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>> Can you save those errors to a file and post it?
>>>>>>>> -- Chris
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Speakup mailing list
>>>>>> Speakup at linux-speakup.org
>>>>>> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>>>>>>>> -- > Kristoffer Gustafsson
>>>>> Sal?ngsgatan 7a
>>>>> tel:033-12 60 93
>>>>> mobil: 0730-500934
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Speakup mailing list
>>>>> Speakup at linux-speakup.org
>>>>> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Speakup mailing list
>>>> Speakup at linux-speakup.org
>>>> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
>>> 			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
>>> 		Email:	janina at rednote.net
>>>
>>> Linux Foundation Fellow
>>> Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org
>>>
>>> The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
>>> Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures	http://www.w3.org/wai/apa
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Speakup mailing list
>>> Speakup at linux-speakup.org
>>> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
>> --
>> Well that's it then, colour me secure!
>>
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>> -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup at linux-speakup.org
>> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
> -- 
>
> Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
> 			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
> 		Email:	janina at rednote.net
>
> Linux Foundation Fellow
> Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org
>
> The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
> Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures	http://www.w3.org/wai/apa
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>