snd-aloop as primary soundcard

F4HWD · October 2, 2020

Armbianmonitor:

Hello !

I have a problem with an OrangePi Zero under Armbian Buster with mainline kernel (5.8). I need to put the module snd-aloop as primary soundcard (index=0), and the integrated soundcard sun4i-codec as index=1. It worked very well with kernel 5.4 and before. I just had to load the snd-aloop module by adding it to /etc/modules and add "options snd-aloop index=0" to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf. But now this is impossible, snd-aloop doesn't load. I had this message when I try to load it manually : modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'snd_aloop': No such device

After reading configuration file of the kernel, I saw that the module sun4i-codec (integrated soundcard) was directly integrated into the kernel, not as an external module, which is confirmed by the lsmod command, it no longer returns the name of the module. I think this is the reason of this issue, because this is the main change between the two versions. I have the impression that the index of the integrated sound card is no longer editable, unless you provide me a solution.

I tried to invert indexes, but my software is too complicated to modify (experimental analog-to-digital gateway for HAM radio communications), so I need to keep the original configuration. I have also tried configuring indexes manually in kernel arguments, with no success.

Can you help me please, because I can't downgrade to 5.4 to ensure the sustainability of the project. Thanks in advance

--

MAX

xwiggen · October 19, 2020

Setting default card (https://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Setting_the_default_device) without messing with indexes does not help?

F4HWD · October 19, 2020

Hi @xwiggen and thanks for helping me, but I already tried this solution and it didn't work. It had no effect on the operation of my system.

I need to have snd_aloop in position 0 and the built-in sound card in position 1 for my software to work. I would like to have this result when I type this command : cat /proc/asound/cards

0 [Loopback       ]: Loopback - Loopback
                      Loopback 1

1 [Codec          ]: H3_Audio_Codec - H3 Audio Codec
                      H3 Audio Codec

I had this before the upgrade to 5.8 kernel, but this is not possible anymore because the OrangePi Zero sound card [Codec] module is now directly integrated into the kernel, making it apparently impossible to modify its order in the list of sound cards. It is now stuck at position 0 no matter what I do.