audio output to HDMI used to work... Now not so much

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jtwdyp
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audio output to HDMI used to work... Now not so much

#1 Post by jtwdyp »

I'm using Slacko 5.6.

It is the only Puppy version I've ever used. (Though I did use the remaster cd to incorporate a few tweaks. :wink: ) I also used the univeral installer to put Puppy on a few flash drives. A couple of which wound up with what
rcrsn51 described as a "hybrid" setup
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=89152 wrote:
rcrsn51 wrote:Some Puppies let you do a hybrid setup where instead of using a savefile, you save your sessions back into a filesystem on the flash drive. That's why you have the folders /usr, /var, etc.
One of those was created on the livingroom PC {the one with an HDMI output} And it MAY have been with that Puppy that I tested the ability to use Puppy to watch a YouTube video on the Livingroom TV complete with sound. I can't test that anymore because I've since managed to damage that particular puppy installation with gparted...

I usually get to spend more time using my own {some what older} PC than the one in the livingroom. So I used my pc when I installed and configured a replacement puppy on the same flashdrive (which I now leave plugged into the back of the livingroom PC {which is an Pavilion and only boots from a flashdrive if I use the escape key to pull up the boot menu})

After I used puppy to watch a couple of YouTube videos, I decided I wanted to get it working on the Mageia Linux I'd installed as a second OS on that same livingroom PC. With Mageia, It took a bit to solve a few dual monitor issues with xrandr. And to get the sound to work on the HDMI output I'd had to use something called paucontrol.

When it worked for me with Puppy, All I'd done to get the same result was to select mode setting at 1024x768 with the firstrun settings wizard.

I hadn't had to configure anything to get the sound working on the HDMI output.

However when I try to do that now, The only way I'm getting sound is to plug in a set of computer speakers (or headphones) which just doesn't sound as good as our flat screen TV's speakers do...

I found the multiple sound card wizard, and used it to set the card to the choice that listed hdmi, But this didn't help...

Since I can now do that from Mageia, It's not a big deal. But I'd like to be able to do it when I'm using the Puppy...

Is it likely that it's really about having initialy installed puppy to the flash drive while it was connected to the PC with the hdmi output???

I'd rather not reinstall and then have to recustomize Puppy Only to find out that wasn't it...
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chapchap70
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#2 Post by chapchap70 »

Basic question before redoing your installation:

Did you try the boot option puppy pfix=ram (no savefile)

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jtwdyp
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#3 Post by jtwdyp »

chapchap70 wrote:Basic question before redoing your installation:

Did you try the boot option puppy pfix=ram (no savefile)
No I didn't... But how does that work anyway???

I mean that would also prevent any automatic save which otherwise would overwrite what ever stuff is currently in my "savefile" right?

And how does that work if the flash drive has one of those *hybrid setups... that doesn't use a regular savefile??

*
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=89152 wrote:
rcrsn51 wrote:Some Puppies let you do a hybrid setup where instead of using a savefile, you save your sessions back into a filesystem on the flash drive. That's why you have the folders /usr, /var, etc.
The one I'm using on this PC is {like the one I trashed with gparted} a hybrid... And by now has enough customization, that I want to be sure I don't zap it. If I wind up "redoing" my installation from scratch, I'll probably put it on another flash drive.
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chapchap70
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#4 Post by chapchap70 »

I'm not sure how your flashdrive boot options are set but my thinking is to see if something got messed up in your savefile. I don't believe Slacko has the directory setup option without a savefile. Fatdog does. You can put multiple savefiles on a flashdrive; I use more than one to test/build stuff so I have 4 or 5 savefiles floating around.

Anyway, if you burned a Slacko5.6 CD, put that in and there should be a screen that says something to the effect of "Press F3 for boot options", You might get that screen while booting from your flashdrive. I don't know. One of those options should be "puppy pfix=ram" This ignores your savefile so you boot into ram. Check to see if you can get the audio to work through the HDMI cable. If it works and you can't get audio out the same way using your savefile, we'll have to see why.

I have gotten audio out of my TV with an HDMI cable using Slacko_5.6. using savefiles.


If you can't get to your boot options to load the puppy into ram, try booting the host OS on your computer and see if you can move your savefile somewhere else. Then Slacko will boot without it so you can check this way.

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bigpup
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#5 Post by bigpup »

Is it likely that it's really about having initialy installed puppy to the flash drive while it was connected to the PC with the hdmi output???
No, if all you did is install to a USB flash drive. The first boot with this install is an initial boot.

Could very well be the cause, if you used it on that computer and made the save file, while running that computer.
The save file has configuration and hardware settings, that are specific, to the computer the save file was made on.

On the first initial boot, there is a complete search for hardware and configuration requirements. When a save file is made, only what is needed to operate that computers hardware is stored in the save file. On next boot, only needs to use configuration and settings from save file. No need to do a complete search for hardware and configuration requirements.
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
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jtwdyp
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#6 Post by jtwdyp »

chapchap70 wrote:I'm not sure how your flashdrive boot options are set but my thinking is to see if something got messed up in your savefile. I don't believe Slacko has the directory setup option without a savefile. Fatdog does. You can put multiple savefiles on a flashdrive; I use more than one to test/build stuff so I have 4 or 5 savefiles floating around.
Wouldn't know what fatdog offers. Slacko5.6 is the only puppy version I've ever downloaded.

I'm not sure {at the moment} if it was during the first "save" or if {more likely} it was an option in the universal installer. But at some point, I was asked where I wanted the save file to be created, and one of the buttons was labeled with the current device name of the flash drive partition I was installing slacko to...

If I selected that button I got the hybrid setup...
chapchap70 wrote:Anyway, if you burned a Slacko5.6 CD, put that in and there should be a screen that says something to the effect of "Press F3 for boot options", You might get that screen while booting from your flashdrive. I don't know. One of those options should be "puppy pfix=ram" This ignores your savefile so you boot into ram. Check to see if you can get the audio to work through the HDMI cable. If it works and you can't get audio out the same way using your savefile, we'll have to see why.
If I was sure it wouldn't trash the non-savefile hybrid setup I could just type it in while Slacko's initial welcome screen is waiting for 5 seconds for me to type at least the first character of the "puppy pfix=ram" command.

As far as running from the cd goes, Don't need to use "puppy pfix=ram" to avoid using the saved stuff. It doesn't open with the flashdrive already mounted, And doesn't already know the changes I made to the keybindings, etc... So by default it's not using the "savefile" or "save_partition"...

But regardless of which cd I boot, (the original or the remastered one) I'm still not getting sound on the hdmi output. Does the live cd do as thorough a Job at hardware configuration settings as the first boot on an installed Puppy??

I could have sworn it had actually worked with Slacko previously. But now I'm not sure I remembered that correctly... I had just spent so much time finding out that with Mageia I needed to do something like:

Code: Select all

xrandr -s 1024x768 --output DFP1 --mode 1024x768 --output CRT1 --primary --mode 1024x768
Each and every time I startx, just to to get what Puppy does automatically after having selected mode setting at 1024x768 with the "QuickSetup first-run settings" wizard. (I use 1024x768 so that I don't need a magnifier to read pull down menus etc on CRT1) That solving the sound on mageia was an after thought... By the time I was done, I might have misremembered whether or not it had once worked in Slacko... :? :?
chapchap70 wrote:I have gotten audio out of my TV with an HDMI cable using Slacko_5.6. using savefiles.


Glad it worked for you. It's possible it has something to do with the sound chip built in to my graphics adapter. I know that with Mageia Linux neither alsa tools nor E17's mixer module are able to route sound to the hdmi output. It required that I use the {retch} pulseadio tool paucontrol to select the output device for {sound streams?} individual sound applications {which had to be already running at the time}.

chapchap70 wrote:If you can't get to your boot options to load the puppy into ram, try booting the host OS on your computer and see if you can move your savefile somewhere else. Then Slacko will boot without it so you can check this way.


If there was a savefile, I'd have done that already...

bigpup wrote:
Is it likely that it's really about having initialy installed puppy to the flash drive while it was connected to the PC with the hdmi output???
No, if all you did is install to a USB flash drive. The first boot with this install is an initial boot.

Could very well be the cause, if you used it on that computer and made the save file, while running that computer.
The save file has configuration and hardware settings, that are specific, to the computer the save file was made on.
That might well be the issue. It takes a bit of configuring before I'm comfortable with ANY Linux install, and Slacko is no exception. I wasn't getting the uninterupted time on the Living room PC So I configured the flash drive installation on my own personal PC...
bigpup wrote:On the first initial boot, there is a complete search for hardware and configuration requirements. When a save file is made, only what is needed to operate that computers hardware is stored in the save file. On next boot, only needs to use configuration and settings from save file. No need to do a complete search for hardware and configuration requirements.
OK so I will have to try creating another one. Then make sure the "1st boot {with save} happens on the Living room PC. Once that's done maybe it would be OK to then plug it into my own desktop for configuring the key bindings, customizing the $PS1 prompt, and adding and configuring the applications I use??? I mean The hardware config requirements would have already been done at that point right???

But it will be a while before I can spend the time. My Lady has started to threaten to pour coffee all over my keyboards if I don't spend some serious time without her feeling like she has to compete with the computers for my attention {sigh} Having a Lady AND a computer is hard on a guy like me... But since my computer won't get miffed if I abandon it for a while, and she really is important. She wins! Will post back when I've had a chance to test another new install...
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jtwdyp
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#7 Post by jtwdyp »

jtwdyp wrote: I could have sworn it had actually worked with Slacko previously. But now I'm not sure I remembered that correctly...
bigpup wrote:On the first initial boot, there is a complete search for hardware and configuration requirements. When a save file is made, only what is needed to operate that computers hardware is stored in the save file. On next boot, only needs to use configuration and settings from save file. No need to do a complete search for hardware and configuration requirements.
OK so I will have to try creating another one. Then make sure the "1st boot {with save} happens on the Living room PC.

But it will be a while before I can spend the time. My Lady has started to threaten to pour coffee all over my keyboards
Well somehow I found the required time...

And I now must conclude that it was my imagination that the sound ever made it to the HDMI output on our Livingroo0m PC with Puppy...

I tried with both my remastered cd, and the one I burned from the downloaded slacko 5.6 iso... In both cases, I not only installed to the flash drive on the Livingroom PC {the one WITH the HDMI output} but I also did all the configuring on it. And in neither case could I get sound to flow through the HDMI connection to the TV. :sigh:

I think I'm going to give up on this issue. I can use the Mageia installation to watch any google videos etc... And that wasn't the primary purpose for puppy anyway.

In every other thing I've asked Puppy to do, I'm very happy with the results.
I now have 5 nearly identical Slacko 5.6 flash drives. {I like having spares} All with the same additional software, the same modified keybindings, etc... Two of them have traditional slackosave files. And the other 3, {including the somewhat larger 16GB Flash I'm keeping in a usb port in the back of the Livingroom PC} all have a hybrid setup where any saved session gets written to the filesystem that Puppy is using. {This makes it possible to copy a data file from it to my already running PC even without having to reboot into Puppy.}

So I'm OK with the current status quo.

But I'd like to thank you all for trying to help get my HDMI sound working with it...
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