My relevant cmus settings, taken from ~/.config/cmus/autosave

set mixer.alsa.channel=PCM
set mixer.alsa.device=default
set output_plugin=alsa

Thank you!

This was needed for Cmus!

EDIT:

in my case it was needed to add

dsp.alsa.device=default
mixer.alsa.device=default
mixer.alsa.channel=PCM
output_plugin=alsa

an .asoundrc

that somehow prevented it?

the sound worked then through players like mpv, but it would not when playing sound through browser or cmus.

once deleted .asoundrc i then had to change the order of the soundcard with options in .alsa-base.conf (alsa picked hdmi first, and i needed the internal soundcard intel_hda first; instead of doing it with .asoundrc with alsa-base.conf it solved my problem)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ad … sound_card

dpkg -l | grep alsa
ii  alsa-base                              1.0.27+1                           all          dummy package to ease purging of obsolete conffiles
ii  alsa-utils                             1.1.3-1                            amd64        Utilities for configuring and using ALSA
ii  gstreamer1.0-alsa:amd64                1.10.4-1+deb9u1                    amd64        GStreamer plugin for ALSA
ii  libalsaplayer0:amd64                   0.99.81-2                          amd64        alsaplayer plugin library
ii  volumeicon-alsa                        0.4.6-2.2+b1                       amd64        systray volume icon for alsa

Note alsa-base is just a dummy package to transition from jessie.

My relevant cmus settings, taken from ~/.config/cmus/autosave

set mixer.alsa.channel=PCM
set mixer.alsa.device=default
set output_plugin=alsa

edit: Plus once you get that you will need to install the alsamixergui package to set volume levels and the like.

alsa

and

alsa-base

package;
however, the cmus alsa-plugin is not responding; there seems to be some incompatibility;
also, the evoked root-command

alsactl init

fails on my system (beowulf xfce4)

thank you very much.

this could mean that something is not functioning on the cmus alsa-backend side?

can you confirm that your alsa is functioing also when pulseaudio is shut-off?

That is all that I install on my personal systems...well...that and volumeicon-alsa.

Alsa is available on Beowulf, you may check what is available in the reps and installed with apt list alsa*.

Then as root execute an alsactl init.

rolfie

This gives

bash: alsactl: command not found

these packages are found

apt list alsa*
Listing... Done
alsa-firmware-loaders/testing 1.1.7-1 amd64
alsa-firmware-loaders/testing 1.1.7-1 i386
alsa-oss/testing 1.1.8-1 amd64
alsa-oss/testing 1.1.8-1 i386
alsa-tools-gui/testing 1.1.7-1 amd64
alsa-tools-gui/testing 1.1.7-1 i386
alsa-tools/testing 1.1.7-1 amd64
alsa-tools/testing 1.1.7-1 i386
alsa-utils/testing,now 1.1.8-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
alsa-utils/testing 1.1.8-2 i386
alsamixergui/testing 0.9.0rc2-1-10 amd64
alsamixergui/testing 0.9.0rc2-1-10 i386
alsaplayer-alsa/testing 0.99.81-2 amd64
alsaplayer-alsa/testing 0.99.81-2 i386
alsaplayer-common/testing 0.99.81-2 amd64
alsaplayer-common/testing 0.99.81-2 i386
alsaplayer-daemon/testing 0.99.81-2 amd64
alsaplayer-daemon/testing 0.99.81-2 i386
alsaplayer-gtk/testing 0.99.81-2 amd64
alsaplayer-gtk/testing 0.99.81-2 i386
alsaplayer-jack/testing 0.99.81-2 amd64
alsaplayer-jack/testing 0.99.81-2 i386
alsaplayer-nas/testing 0.99.81-2 amd64
alsaplayer-nas/testing 0.99.81-2 i386
alsaplayer-oss/testing 0.99.81-2 amd64
alsaplayer-oss/testing 0.99.81-2 i386
alsaplayer-text/testing 0.99.81-2 amd64
alsaplayer-text/testing 0.99.81-2 i386
alsaplayer-xosd/testing 0.99.81-2 amd64
alsaplayer-xosd/testing 0.99.81-2 i386

however, there is no "alsa" or "alsa-base" package?

Then as root execute an alsactl init.

rolfie

https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=alsa

when i changed the above line to

set output_plugin=alsa

an error came up; when i tried to install alsa package, there was the message "package not found" or similar, that got me thinking this is not installed.

the exact error that comes up with alsa is

Error: opening audio device: No such file or directory

I am using Debian since Wheezy/Squeeze, and Alsa was always default package.

apt-cache search alsa
a2jmidid - Daemon for exposing legacy ALSA MIDI in JACK MIDI systems
aconnectgui - graphical ALSA sequencer connection manager
alsa-oss - ALSA wrapper for OSS applications
alsa-tools - Console based ALSA utilities for specific hardware
alsa-tools-gui - GUI based ALSA utilities for specific hardware
alsa-utils - Utilities for configuring and using ALSA
alsamixergui - graphical soundcard mixer for ALSA soundcard driver
alsaplayer-alsa - alsaplayer output module for ALSA
alsaplayer-common - audio player (common files)
alsaplayer-daemon - alsaplayer daemon
alsaplayer-gtk - alsaplayer gtk interface
alsaplayer-jack - alsaplayer output module for JACK
alsaplayer-nas - alsaplayer output module for NAS
alsaplayer-oss - alsaplayer output module for OSS
alsaplayer-text - alsaplayer text interface
alsaplayer-xosd - alsaplayer XOSD display module
ams - Realtime modular synthesizer for ALSA
apulse - PulseAudio emulation for ALSA
aseqjoy - Joystick to ALSA MIDI Sequencer Converter
balsa - e-mail client for GNOME
cairo-dock-alsamixer-plug-in - Alsamixer plug-in for Cairo-dock
drumstick-tools - Qt4/C++ wrapper for ALSA Sequencer - utilities
gstreamer1.0-alsa - GStreamer plugin for ALSA
japa - JACK and ALSA Perceptual Analyser
kmetronome - ALSA MIDI Metronome
kmidimon - MIDI monitor using ALSA sequencer and KDE user interface
ld10k1 - ALSA emu10k1/2 patch loader
libalsa-ocaml - OCaml bindings for the ALSA library
libalsa-ocaml-dev - OCaml bindings for the ALSA library
libalsaplayer-dev - alsaplayer plugin library (development files)
libalsaplayer0 - alsaplayer plugin library
libasound2 - shared library for ALSA applications
libasound2-data - Configuration files and profiles for ALSA drivers
libasound2-dev - shared library for ALSA applications -- development files
libasound2-doc - documentation for user-space ALSA application programming
libasound2-plugin-equal - equalizer plugin for ALSA
libasound2-plugin-smixer - smixer plugin for ALSA library
libasound2-plugins - ALSA library additional plugins
libclalsadrv-dev - ALSA driver C++ access library (development files)
libclalsadrv2 - ALSA driver C++ access library
libdrumstick-dev - Qt4/C++ wrapper for ALSA Sequencer - development files
libdrumstick0 - Qt4/C++ wrapper for ALSA Sequencer
libdssialsacompat-dev - DSSI ALSA compatibility library (development files)
libdssialsacompat0 - DSSI ALSA compatibility library for non-Linux platforms
libghc-alsa-core-dev - binding to the ALSA Library API (Exceptions)
libghc-alsa-core-doc - binding to the ALSA Library API (Exceptions); documentation
libghc-alsa-core-prof - binding to the ALSA Library API (Exceptions); profiling libraries
libghc-alsa-mixer-dev - bindings to the ALSA simple mixer API
libghc-alsa-mixer-doc - bindings to the ALSA simple mixer API; documentation
libghc-alsa-mixer-prof - bindings to the ALSA simple mixer API; profiling libraries
liblo10k1-0 - ALSA emu10k1/2 patch-loader library
liblo10k1-dev - ALSA emu10k1/2 patch-loader library development files
libomxil-bellagio0-components-alsa - ALSA source/sink components for Bellagio OpenMAX IL
libsnack-alsa - Sound extension to Tcl/Tk and Python/Tkinter - ALSA files
libsox-fmt-alsa - SoX alsa format I/O library
libzita-alsa-pcmi-dev - Development files (headers) for libzita-alsa-pcmi library
libzita-alsa-pcmi0 - C++ wrapper around the ALSA API
mcp-plugins - LADSPA plugins designed for Alsa Modular Synth
mopidy-alsamixer - Mopidy extension for extension for ALSA volume control
mudita24 - ALSA GUI control tool for Envy24 (ice1712) soundcards
multimedia-jack - JACK (Jack Audio Connection Kit) and ALSA related packages
osspd-alsa - OSS Proxy Daemon: ALSA backend (experimental)
patchage - modular patch bay for Jack audio and Alsa Midi
pmidi - command line midi player for ALSA
python-alsaaudio - Alsa bindings for Python
python-pyalsa - Official ALSA Python binding library for Python2
python3-alsaaudio - Alsa bindings for Python 3
python3-pyalsa - Official ALSA Python binding library for Python3
qasconfig - ALSA configuration browser
qashctl - mixer for ALSA's High level Control Interface
qasmixer - ALSA mixer for the desktop
qmidiarp - MIDI arpeggiator for ALSA
randomsound - ALSA sound card related entropy gathering daemon
snd-gtk-jack - Sound file editor (GTK+ user interface - JACK)
snd-nox - Sound file editor (cmdline)
squeezelite - lightweight headless Squeezebox emulator - ALSA version
tcl-snack - Sound extension to Tcl/Tk and Python/Tkinter - Tcl/Tk library
tuxguitar-alsa - tuxguitar plugin for sound playback using ALSA
volumeicon-alsa - systray volume icon for alsa
xmms2-plugin-alsa - XMMS2 - ALSA output
zita-ajbridge - alsa to jack bridge
zita-alsa-pcmi-utils - Two simple demo programs zita-alsa-pcmi library
alsa-firmware-loaders - ALSA software loaders for specific hardware

Is what you are looking for in there?

on most of my notebook i tried to use alsa only because it did sound cleaner and louder on those that i used; sometimes it was quite a drastic improvement to rid the system of pulseaudio , sometimes a minor.

today i tried to install cmus and to get it working had to append

set output_plugin=pulse

to

~/.config/cmus/rc

now i would like to use alsa-only (more easy on xfce4 rather than on gnome)

but it seems that on devuan alsa it is not available or am i wrong here?

sudo apt-get install alsa
[sudo] password for rich: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package alsa is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'alsa' has no installation candidate