No Sound

[Steven Friedrich]

On Friday, 14 September 2018 15:02:28 EDT Polytropon wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Sep 2018 11:45:57 -0400, Steven Friedrich wrote:
> > It's a SATA DVD and there are no headphone jacks on modern internal DVD
> > drives.  So there's no audio cable connecting the drive to any sound card
> > or header on the motherboard.  So that means there's no ability to
> > transfer analog audio, just digital audio, I believe.
> 
> There are tools like cdparanoia that can "digitally play"
> from the CD drive, and you can also use mplayer to play
> CD audio the digital way.
> 
> > I also can't get output from mplayer.  I'll try VLC next.
> 
> If you don't have sound in mplayer, it likely won't happen
> that you get sound from VLC (or any other media player for
> that matter).
> 
> > Also, no devices should up under KDE5 system settings Phonon page.  Is it
> > possible I didn't check all the phonon boxes when I built KDE5 from ports?
> 
> I think Phonon is a default component of the KDE installation.
> But for now, don't bother with KDE. Always check the basics
> first, using the system tools.
> 
> For example, using good old "mpg123 somefile.mp3" and then
> experiment with the mixer command. It _might_ be possible
> that you have to select a different output device using sysctl.
> 
> Example: I have a Lenovo R61i and a R500. On the R61i, I can
> use the default unit (0), while I have to enable the setting
> "hw.snd.default_unit=1" in /etc/sysctl.conf on the R500,
> even though they seem to be using almost the same HDA codec:
> 
> R61i:
> 	pcm0: <Conexant CX20561 (Hermosa) (Front Analog)>
> 	pcm1: <Conexant CX20561 (Hermosa) (Internal Analog)>
> 
> R500:
> 
> 	pcm0: <Conexant CX20549 (Venice) (Analog 2.0+HP/2.0)>
> 	pcm1: <Conexant CX20549 (Venice) (Ext-Rear Digital)>
> 
> With sysctl as mentioned, the second one will work. :-)

OK, I've figured out the basics (mostly)
I have three possible outputs to choose from, i.e., pcm0 (rear analog), pcm1 
(front analog), and pcm2 (HDMI/DP).
I can choose which touse with sysctl hw.snd.default_unit.
Which ever I set, I must use the corresponding mixer, i.e., mixer0 for pcm0, 
mixer1 for pcm1, and mixer2 for pcm2.
I can hear sound out of pcm0 and pcm1 (rear and front analog), but I can't 
hear any sound from pcm2 which goes to HDMI.
The man page for snd_hds says:
HDMI and DisplayPort audio may also require support from video driver.

Since I'm using syscons, I don't think this applies.
But it begs the question, is the audio supplied to both HDMI and DisplayPort 
or is it selectable?
And is it digital or analog?

In summary, I can't get audio out to HDMI...