Bug 168019

Are you sure that your card has a support for 5+1 surround sound? Which driver
do you use?

I am absolutely positive this card supports 5+1 surround.

This is snd_via82xx.
The card is:

00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237
AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)

Could you attach an output of 'aplay -l'?

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 1: V8235 [VIA 8235], device 0: VIA 8235 [VIA 8235]
  Subdevices: 4/4
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
card 1: V8235 [VIA 8235], device 1: VIA 8235 [VIA 8235]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

What happens if you try:
aplay -D cards.VIA8233.pcm.surround51.0:CARD=0 /usr/share/sounds/phone.wav
aplay -D surround51 /usr/share/sounds/phone.wav

Could you attach content of /proc/asound/cards?

[phantom@cobra ~]$ aplay -D cards.VIA8233.pcm.surround51.0:CARD=0
/usr/share/sounds/phone.wav
aplay: main:533: audio open error: No such file or directory
[phantom@cobra ~]$ aplay -D surround51 /usr/share/sounds/phone.wav
ALSA lib confmisc.c:990:(snd_func_refer) Unable to find definition
'cards.MPU-401 UART.pcm.surround51.0:CARD=0'
ALSA lib conf.c:3479:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned
error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib conf.c:3948:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2090:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM surround51
aplay: main:533: audio open error: No such file or directory
[phantom@cobra ~]$

/proc/asound/cards:

0 [UART           ]: MPU-401 UART - MPU-401 UART
                     MPU-401 UART at 0x300, irq 5
1 [V8235          ]: VIA8233 - VIA 8235
                     VIA 8235 with ALC650F at 0xe400, irq 3

You have to use the 'surround51:1' device instead of 'surround51'.

That works.... so what's the bug?

Hold on a moment.... that was not a rhethorical question.

There's a bug somewhere, because mplayer doesn't work. Furthermore, rhythmbox
doesn't work, and the multimedia system selector doesn't work. Any program using
ALSA doesn't work.... so I think the bug shouldn't be closed.

What exactly do you mean by "you should use surround 51:1". I am not familiar 
with how ALSA is configured - I don't care - I only want my frontend to work.
What change would you recommend to make the frontend(s) work?

You have two soundcards but the primary (default) is the first one, i.e. UART.
Device surround51 means "use surround for the primary/default card" but your
primary card doesn't support it. Device surround51:1 means "use surround for the
secondary card", which is V8235 and it's the right card. You can change your
default card in /etc/asound.conf.

I find this very strange, because, to the best of my knowledge I have one
soundcard, and not two. This soundcard is onboard. My soundcard supports 5.1
channel-audio. 

I see no /etc/asound.conf, and no manpage for it.
On the other hand I do see /etc/alsa/alsa.conf, but no manpage
for that either, and I don't understand the format.

I would expect sound to work out of the box on a Fedora install.

You can use system-config-soundcard to set your primary soundcard and it will
make /etc/asound.conf for you.

Allright, thank you...

So why is it that I have two soundcards (one of which doesn't work - I can't
hear Test sound)...