[LINUX] HOW-TO get Digital Audio Pass-Through Output working on Linux with XBMC

Blegh.. I really dont want to go back to an older build of Ubuntu

Is your .asoundrc file the same as the others around here? And you just stick it in your ~ folder right?

WOOT!!!! I got my menu sounds!!!!

added this for my .asoundrc file


I did all the suggestions in the previous posts.. but the magic card for me was the contents of my .asoundrc file

So now I got AC3, DTS and some stero menu sounds all rocking through my optical port under Ubuntu 11.10

Thanks xbmcuser01!

After hours searching i around different forums my problem is solved.
Works nicely for both system sound music and pass-trough on 11.10.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundT...gProcedure

running the commands listed there for my distro i was able to get optical out working properly

without running those commands i could only ever get 2 of the 3 audios i needed (XBMC digital, XBMC analog, Ubunutu audio).

tested and working on 10.04 LTS

no file changes needed for me. but it is a large total download (150+MB)

It worked perfectly for me. I'm using the XBMCbuntu 11.00 running on a netbook HP DM13260 with a "USB 2.0 External Sound Card Box with 7.1-Speaker SPDIF Optical Output". This external USB sound card is a cheap one using the CM6206 (cm106) integrated circuit.

It was not passing the sound though SPDIF optical connector, but after executing the command lines explained by user draggy, it worked perfectly for me!

I just did the below:
-------------------------------------
sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get install alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base alsamixergui
sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common libesd0 gnome-alsamixer
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian-alsa

reboot
--------------------------------------

And then changed at Settings->System->"Audio Output" on both "Audio Output Device" and "Passthough Output Device" to:
USB Sound Device - IEC958 - 0 (Alsa)

I'm running Linux Mint 13 (based on ubuntu) and XBMC 11.0 and I'm having the same HDMI audio problem.

The magic bullet package seems to be libsdl1.2debian-alsa, but I don't have that in any of my repositories. I downloaded it from debian website, but it tells me that it breaks already installed package libsdl1.2debian. Note the lack of -alsa.

If I remove that package, it wants to remove tons of other stuff that came packaged with Mint

Quote:ffmpeg gecko-mediaplayer gnome-mplayer gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse
kdenlive libav-tools libmjpegtools-1.9 libmlt++3 libmlt5 libsdl-image1.2
libsdl-mixer1.2 libsdl1.2debian libxine1 libxine1-x melt
mint-meta-cinnamon-dvd mint-meta-codecs mjpegtools mplayer2 mythtv
mythtv-backend mythtv-common mythtv-database mythtv-frontend
mythtv-transcode-utils transcode vlc xbmc xbmc-bin xine-ui

In the meantime, removing pulse has broken all audio in Linux, even at the desktop level

Edit: I have a mostly working setup. Mostly. I reinstalled pulse and got everything at the system level working. I have

In my .asoundrc file.

For my primary audio, I have Default (alsa), and my passthrough I have custom: plug:default.

Now, when I start up any movie file (mp3 or ac3 audio), I get no audio and video that plays about 2 fps UNTIL I pause and unpause the video. When I do that, I get passthrough and regular audio, but I have to do this for EVERY file. Not an ideal situation.

Here is my aplay-l

I can get mplayer to passthrough audio on device 0.7

EDIT AGAIN: Figures, 10 minutes after I post I stumble upon a working solution. In the alsa settings (when you click your volume control on the desktop) I have the option to output stereo by default or surround 5.1 by default. I had it set to 5.1. But if I change it to stereo, and leave the same settings, both passthrough and dolby audio work without a hitch. I don't get any XBMC menu sounds, but I don't really need it.