I was installing various pieces of music software on my laptop last night – things like Pure Data, Csound, Supercollider – in preparation for the Linux Audio Conference at the end of this month (at least I would know something about what people will be speaking about!). I went to play an mp3 file of the output from a pd patch, and Amarok complains that it can’t play it.
Ah, I haven’t set the soundcard up on this new install of openSUSE 10.2. OK, I do that, but Amarok says it still can’t play the mp3 file.
Of course, this is crappy proprietary mp3, so I need to uninstall the default xinelib and install libxine. OK, Amarok now plays the thing – I can see the visualiser moving – but no sound.
Hmm. Queue an hour or two of trying different drivers for the soundcard, googling, fiddling about with alsamixer, etc. Still no luck.
This morning, I turned on the laptop and tried again. No sound. All the software seems to be working … surely … it couldn’t be … no … what about pressing the volume up button on the keyboard? Aargh! Sound! Who muted the damned thing??!!
Moral – never understimate your own stupidity!
