[Discuss] timidity

[cra at wpi.edu (Anderson, Charles R)]

/dev/dsp is a legacy sound driver device node for the obsolete OSS sound driver.  Newer software should be using either ALSA sound directly via /dev/snd/pcm* or via the PulseAudio sound server.  For timidity, try using -Os or just do not specify -O at all let it pick the default.  Either works fine on my Fedora 29 system.

Available output modes (-O, --output-mode option):
  -OO          Libao mode
  -Os          ALSA pcm device
  -Od          dsp device
  -Oj          JACK device
  -Ow          RIFF WAVE file
  -Or          Raw waveform data
  -Ou          Sun audio file
  -Oa          AIFF file
  -Ov          Ogg Vorbis
  -OF          FLAC
  -OS          Ogg Speex
  -Ol          List MIDI event
  -Om          Write MIDI file
  -OM          MOD -> MIDI file conversion


On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 03:27:59PM -0400, dan moylan wrote:
> 
> derek writes:
> > On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 11:16:21AM -0400, dan moylan wrote:
> >
> >> running fc29 on acer aspire E1-6860.
> >
> >> timidiy installed and appears to run, but no audio is heard.
> >> using option -Od (default) complains the /dev/dsp isn't
> >> there.  any suggestions?
> 
> > The two things that come to mind are:
> 
> > 1. /dev/dsp is in fact not there... the node may be
> >    missing from /dev, or the driver may not be loaded.
> 
> > 2. /dev/dsp IS there, and the driver is loaded, but
> >    something else has it open/locked.
> 
> > Some things to try:
> 
> > ls -l /dev/dsp
> 
> moylan 2019[1368] ls -l /dev/dsp
> ls: cannot access '/dev/dsp': No such file or directory
> 
> > check dmsg output/syslog for errors about your sound hardware
> 
> > lsmod and grep on your driver name (assuming a modular kernel)
> 
> Module                  Size  Used by
> snd_seq_dummy          16384  0
> snd_hrtimer            16384  0
> snd_hda_codec_realtek   126976  1
> snd_hda_codec_generic    90112  1 snd_hda_codec_realtek
> snd_hda_codec_hdmi     69632  1
> snd_hda_intel          49152  6
> snd_hda_codec         155648  4 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_realtek
> snd_hda_core          102400  5 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_codec_realtek
> snd_hwdep              16384  1 snd_hda_codec
> snd_seq                86016  1 snd_seq_dummy
> snd                    94208  22 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hwdep,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_timer,snd_pcm
> soundcore              16384  1 snd
> drm_kms_helper        212992  1 i915
> drm                   487424  14 drm_kms_helper,i915
> 
> these are what appear to be sound modules, not that i know
> what any of them does.  which one might be my driver?
> 
> johnny wrote:
> > i don't know if this came about when updating debian, but
> > that's when it came about for me. the problem was that
> > timidity was starting *before* pulseaudio, so pulseaudio
> > couldn't get the audio "files" to write to.
> 
> > i solved it by killing the running timidity process (as
> > root), which freed up the audio file semaphores (?) so that
> > pulseaudio could grab them and send the sound out my
> > speakers. there's prolly a way i can stop timidity from
> > starting up, but for now, just manually killing that
> > (timidity) process works for me.
> 
> no timidity processes running here, except when i explicityl
> call timidity from the command line.
> 
> thanks for your suggestions.
> 
> ole dan