Ubuntu

usb audio issue with kdegames

Asked by Michael Forcier

I am running Ubuntu 10.04 (gnome desktop) on a home built system (up to date with updates). I have USB speakers (both power and sound through usb port). There is no internal speaker on the computer. The sound works fine when I choose USB AUDIO Analog Stereo on the output tab of the Sound Preferences app. When I run a KDE game (KBattleship or other) I do not have any game sound (even with play sounds selected in the game preferences). However, if I close the game, switch the output device to Internal Audio Stereo, and then reopen the game, I have game sound. But then none of the other sounds work. So I have to switch back to USB when I am done.

I have also played with Linux Mint 9 (gnome desktop) on a thumbdrive. I installed the kdegames package on that as well. I noticed as I switched computers that I would get messages about sound devices no longer being attached when I open a kde game. This is the same message that I would get on kde desktop distributions (kubuntu) when I switched computers. The last message I got I click on a button that opened “Multimedia – KDE Control Module”. From there I could see USB as an output device at the bottom of the priority list. But it was grayed out (different computer that did not have usb speakers) so I could not move it up. Now, because I choose to ignore the messages, I can't open it back up. I have to use the same trick with Mint as I do with Ubuntu to get the sounds to work.

It appears to me that the sound for the kde games is controlled differently from gnome's desktop. However, I can't figure out how to get to it within Ubuntu.

I would appreciate some guidance on either getting into the kde sound controller or making the kde games use the gnome controller (or set USB as a higher priority). Or at least getting my computer setup so that I don't have to switch between the 2 output choices.

I would also appreciate a little insight on how I managed to get sound out of my usb speakers using the internal speaker setting.

Thank you.

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Michael Forcier
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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Log a bug

Revision history for this message
Michael Forcier (mike4ca) said : 		#2

Additional info: The Ubuntu install above is amd64.

I did some more testing. I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.04 i386 on a thumbdrive using live linux 2.6 with persistance (separate partition, not file). I installed kdegames package using apt-get and then Ubuntu restricted extras with the software center.

I puposely switched laptops so that there would be stranded devices that the KDE control module would ask about. This gave me the opportunity to open it. At first the laptop had internal speakers only. KBattleship and Rhythmbox shared the speakers just fine and were both visible (when active) on the Application tab of the Sound Preferences.

I then plugged in a USB headset. I switched output in Sound Preferences to the usb device. I needed to move the usb device to a higher preference in KDE's control module for the game sound to come through the usb headset. Then there was no level control and it never showed up on the Application tab. When I started Rythmbox (and some tunes) the Rythmbox output came through the usb headset as expected, but the kde game sound reverted from the usb headset back to the internal speaker (which was a lower on the preference list). The only thing showing in the Application tab was Rythmbox. Next I quit Rythmbox and closed and reopened the game. The game sound went back to the usb headset (again no volume control).

Note, I wanted to save this information on the new bug listing. There was a box for me to add a comment but I could not see how to save/apply the comment. Let me know what I need to do to add comments to the bug listing directly.

Revision history for this message
Michael Forcier (mike4ca) said : 		#3

I tested both the 32 and 64 bit versions of Ubuntu 10.10 on thumbdrives and the issue appears to have been resolved in the latest version. I will update my desktop with the formal release of 10.10.