5.1 audio in linux?

So I've got a Dell XPS M1330, and I'm going to get the Logitech X-540 5.1 speaker system. I know in Vista I can select each of the three 3.5mm jacks on the front of my computer to output stuff for the green, black, and orange input cables for the speaker system. How do I do that in Ubuntu 8.10? I'm relatively new to linux, so I don't know much about it...

 

Not entirely sure. Never tried it I know that it works fine with my built-in motherboard sound card through my SPDIF output. The one thing you might start looking into is the alsamixer program, see how you can configure the outputs for your specific card.

I can't find anything online specifically about that, though. Do the speakers take digital input? I think the M1330 does digital out, and I'm almost certain that Linux will do that fine. I'm just not sure about the multiple outputs.

 

Thanks, I'll look into the alsamixer program. Can that be gotten just from the Synaptic Package Manager, or somewhere else?

And I don't think the speakers take digital input. They just have the three analog 3.5mm input cords: green, black and orange. If I did get a digital set of speakers, how would I hook them up to the M1330? I don't think there is any digital audio out, besides maybe the HDMI port?

 

Yes, you should be able to get it using Synaptic.

 

If there's no digital out (and the speakers don't take digital in) then you'd just connect them the same way you would under Windows. I've usually heard that most of those schemes change the microphone port into another output port for 5.1 sound.

 

Check out JACK, it may be able to do it.

 

Alright, so the speakers are plugged in like the picture shows, which is how they work in Vista. The 2 receptacles on the left on the computer are the two headphone ports, and the one on the right is the mic port. The green is front, orange is center/sub, black is rear.

In Vista, everything is good. But in Ubuntu, ALSA mixer is mixing up a few things. It thinks that the center port is "Surround", and the right port is "Headphones" (according to what mutes when I test it when "Mic as output" is checked). Now, when I switch the black and orange, "Surround" is correct, but the center channel is very very quiet (like you cannot hear it with front and rear unmuted).

I guess what I need is how do I boost what the mic port outputs? (and possibly switch the label so it says "Center" in the mixer and not "Headphones?"

I hope this makes sense...

 

(10 char limittttttt)

 

I'm not really sure what exactly you are talking about, I couldn't find a program called out JACK but I did find JackEQ from Synaptic, then tried to run it and got this:

Code:

kozzney@kozzney-laptop:~$ jackeq
jackEQ 0.4.1
(c) 2003 - 2004 S. Harris, P. Shirkey
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details.
Registering as jackEQ
jackEQ: Cannot contact JACK server, is it running?
kozzney@kozzney-laptop:~$ 

It also doesn't work when I try to run it from Applications>Sound & Video>JackEQ

 

I haven't used JACK in a while, but i used it in the past. It's essentially a patch bay for your sound. It fixes probs with alsa only allowing one app to run sound at a time. I'm assuming you could also use it to route your audio to wherever you wanted. I'd have to look into it to remember how to run things. To be honest, a friend aset it up for me before. I had it when I first started using linux. I don't have a linux install to mess with at the moment, cause I'm waiting for a new laptop. You should go to the ubuntu forums. there's a lot more users there who may be able to help.