alsa-ucm-conf VS alsa-scarlett-gui

This is the place to start - https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-ucm-conf

Well I kinda asked about i3 related problems not just generic linux desktop voes but I'll try my best.

> - I recently bought a monitor and plugged it in. Sound stopped working until I rebooted. Figured it out easily with pavucontrol of course (just toggling things) but only after reboot. Annoying but fair enough.

And that isn't a problem under GNOME ? Both use Pulseaudio...

Anyway I ended up resorting to writing some custom udev rules and some horrible hacks [0] to get my sound interface to work correctly; the interface was 2 in/4 out but it showed up as stereo in/4.0 out, and I needed dual mono + dual stereo outs. But as pulseaudio have no memory whatsoever on plugin config, it needs to be reapplied any time device is plugged in...

...and after upgrade ALSA of all things horribly broke it in different way [1], where someone added 500ms latency to default profile used to split device into sub-channels to"fix cracking" (that happened to only some users), and the interface I used was assigned that profile

Linux Sound story is by far my least liked part of it. And the new modern pipewire just hangs on my machine, not accepting any commands...

> Connecting/disconnecting monitors is flaky, sometimes it requires a few toggles in arandr (which already helps a lot). Maybe there is a better tool I could use?

I so far only experienced it with one flaky monitor at work, it looks like some deeply rooted problem. I guess if I had to solve it I'd just make some script trying to apply the profile and bind it to keys to quickly fix it. I don't think arandr is the culprit here, rather something between graphics server, driver, and monitor.

> Some wifi networks sometimes dont' work out of the box even though I'm just using the easy nm-applet.

I didn't had that problem in particular on laptop at least (also using nm-applet), but same thing works under GNOME ? IIRC it also uses network manager. We had some problems with users trying to use networkmanager for VPN and it not supporting all options plain OpenVPN did.

The most grief that networking gave me is actually systemd-resolved [2] but no good fix for that so far.

- [0] https://devrandom.eu/blog/post/2022-11-03_splitting_stereo_i...

- [1] https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-ucm-conf/issues/192#iss...

- [2] https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/27543

But on the flip-side, if you don't use SteamOS, it's a lot of effort to cobble together all the optimizations that make the Steam Deck great (not just the custom kernel--as you can now use the mainline kernel and a quick patch), but the TDP/clock/fps limiters you can slide up and down from that side menu.

Yes. I am using omni directional. Fixed here: https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-ucm-conf/issues/308

I have the MOTU M2 on Manjaro Linux and it works fine through Jack. I know there were some issues with having it recognized under Pulseaudio (here and here), but I think those have been fixed. I sometimes have to power cycle the M2 before it's recognized under Pulseaudio again.

Googling the issue I found I'm not the only one with issues surrounding that chip. I came across this issue, which led me to add my specific device ID (of course it's different for each model 🤦) to my /usr/share/alsa/ucm2/USB-Audio/USB-Audio.conf, without notable effect. Yes I rebooted. I also came across this PR, but I haven't been able to figure out if there's a change I can make to my local files that would make the ALC4080-HiFi driver feel responsible for this USB device, if it's even relevant.

Most probably something todo with recent alsa ucm changes for M4:https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-ucm-conf/blob/master/ucm2/USB-Audio/MOTU/M4.conf If changing profiles in pavucontrol on Configuration tab does not help, you can try to disable ucm: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWire#Microphone_is_not_detected_by_PipeWire

You can check https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-ucm-conf

I've had a kernel update break my sound card, alsa-ucm break my sound card and I also experienced the grub problem, which was a pain. I update yesterday and now OpenCL is broken for what I needed it for (hashcat). None I can blame on Arch, it just happens when you get new stuff. Fedora also updated to those packages that broke my sound card, which is typically my Fedora experience after switching from Arch. You get the same bugs.. just a bit later. Not sure what I'll even try now.

I went through a bit of a rabbits hole and installed what appeared to be a kernel driver and associated GUI controller documented here. I made sure to use the correct PID found in lsusb. (Which the Clarett shows up in).

Doesn't this work for it? https://github.com/geoffreybennett/alsa-scarlett-gui/

Focusrite interfaces have software controls because a Linux user created them alsa-scarlett-gui There is nothing similar for Lexicon or other brands

For example, Focusrite has this weird "no but maybe" FAQ page on their website. But in fact, the fact that it is class compliant means it should just work on any OS (even Windows) without their specific drivers. And even better, the settings in their installable Windows/MacOS-only Control Software are all accessible trough alsa in the kernel on any recent Linux distro out of the box, and people even made extra nice frontends for it!

Hi, I'm using alsa-scarlett-gui on arch linux with pipewire and wireplumber, I have a 3.5mm jack microphone connected to it with a 6.35 adapter but it does not detect any sound from it, no light from my 2i2 indicating sound, nothing from my audio mixer on the input devices tab. How might I troubleshoot this?

https://github.com/geoffreybennett/alsa-scarlett-gui/blob/master/USAGE.md (although I guess I've discovered my 2i2 is second gen, wahhh)

For this interface audio connections can be routed in ALSA with alsa-scarlett-gui

What generation of Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 do you have? This might be an interesting application for you to play with: https://github.com/geoffreybennett/alsa-scarlett-gui

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