Fedora Rant #3 - why are the sound controls so weird?

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005, Timothy Murphy wrote:

> Matthew Saltzman wrote:
>
>>> System Settings=>Soundcard Detection
>>> strikes me as completely useless.
>>> What exactly is the point of it?
>>> Has anyone ever found it of any use?
>>
>> Why, yes.  I find that it detects and configures my sound cards (SB Live!
>> and Intel 82801) flawlessly and plays a test sound in the left, right, and
>> both channels.  That means it got the right hardware and inserted the
>> right driver module with the right parameters.
>
> In what way does it "configure" your card?

It adds appropriate entries in /etc/mpdprobe.conf so that the appropriate 
modules are loaded at boot with the appropriate options.  In the case of 
my Intel card:

   alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
   options snd-card-0 index=0
   options snd-intel8x0 index=0
   remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; };
   /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0


>
> As far as I can see, it simply tells you what card it sees,
> and asks you if it is working.
> If it is, it tells you it is working.
> If it is not, it tells you it is not working.

And if it is working, it will continue to work across boots.  (At least in 
my case.  If it doesn't in your case, see bugzilla.redhat.com.)

-- 
 		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs