[HSken]

I had quit some problems and solved most of them:

• Hardware accelleration (AMD/ATI Radeon 5700)
  
• Sound problems:
  • Audio passtrough not working
    
  • No HDMI support zone 2
    
  • Cracking
    
  • Quality loss
    
  • lag
    
  • pulse audio
    
  • ...
    

In short use the guide of this forum for hardware acceleration: Linux - Radeon OSS with vdpau (howto)
Solve audio problems:
Disable pulseaudio and use ALSA (look at my link for explanation)
Solve Receiver (ONKYO tx-sr608) zone 2 no digital audio support:
Output audio also over a analog sound card, so called dualaudio (look at my link for explanation)

I posted a guide to my solutions on the ubuntu forum:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2225249

I hope this helps some people with the same problems!

[SikeMo]

Brilliant! I was having the same issues. Thanks very much.

[fritsch]

We have all of those in the wiki ... http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=PulseAudio

And concerning the howto: It does not install pulseaudio at all :-)

[SikeMo]

I've read the wiki...

What I am looking for is a permanently disabled pulseaudio so that I can launch XBMC using ALSA without using the terminal command in the wiki (my system has to be wife friendly). I also need dual audio output because I am using speakers in two rooms (zone 2 on the Onkyo is analog only). I only saw a method for that using pulse in the wiki.

At the moment, I am still having issues with dual audio output using ALSA. I have added the suggested asound.conf file and confirmed the hardware configs, but ALSA doesn't seem to be reading/using the file. Any suggestions here? I'm running Trusty...

My head has been spinning with this stuff for days now. I would just use OpenELEC, but I need to run a Myth backend as well as Steam. It's a system of many compromises.

[fritsch]

At the moment, I am still having issues with dual audio output using ALSA. I have added the suggested asound.conf file and confirmed the hardware configs, but ALSA doesn't seem to be reading/using the file. Any suggestions here? I'm running Trusty...

Nope - we don't support dual audio from within xbmc, besides going the pulseaudio way - which does not work for passthrough in that dual audio combination, the alsa doubling is a hack and might get you different results - working or non working.

[SikeMo]

Unfortunately, seeing the DTS-MA light on my receiver gives me great satisfaction. I think I will stick with ALSA for now and try to get this hack working.

[nickr]

1. Permanently disabling pulseaudio can be done by removing it's package.

2. You can set the alsa line in the command to start XBMC, either from an icon or on bootup/X starting (or however you are starting it). I can't remember the exact incantation to put in the .desktop file for an icon, but it's on the forum somewhere...