Alsa Issue with kernel 5.15.0-2 and 5.16.0-1?

[Member stevesr0]

Hi all,

I have both the 5.10.88-antix1 and 5.15.0-2 kernels installed on my Sid antiX system. Both seemed to be working equally well, until a recent upgrade. After that, my Logitech USB headset was no longer detected when I was running the 5.15 kernel. The headset works fine with the antix kernel.

Because this followed an update in Pipewire and Wireplumber, I assumed that there was an incompatibility between the kernel and the new Pipewire/Wireplumber software. I reported this to the Pipewire issues site on Gitlab a few days ago. However, after trying various tests, it seemed that alsa was not detecting the headset. It does detect the built in sound.

I don’t need to fix this, because I am doing perfectly well with the “older” 5.10.88 antix kernel.

However, since alsa is kind of fundamental to sound in linux and the 5.15 kernel series is a long time support version, I thought it might be of interest to post. I have searched on line, but haven’t seen report of a kernel 5.15/5.16 bug that might cause a problem with alsa.

I looked into posting a bug report on the kernel mail list, but after looking at the guide to posting there decided to hold off for the moment.

(Of course, as a curious person, I am happy to seek an explanation/fix, if anyone has suggestions, or also has had a problem with sound using the 5.15.0-2/5.16.0-1 kernels.)

stevesr0

• This topic was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by stevesr0.

[Member stevesr0]

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Update.

Today, after banging my head against this for a while, I looked into the modules loaded, and the cards detected on the working and nonworking kernels on this computer.

Booted with the working kernel (5.10.88 antiX customized kernel), both an internal card and a USB headset are listed in /proc/asound/cards and in pactl list cards. Only the internal card is detected with the debian 5.15.02 and 5.16.0-1 kernels.

With the working kernel, lsmod | grep usb displays snd_usb_audio and snd_usbmidi_lib as loaded. With both NON working kernels, only usbcore and usb_common are listed in lsmod.

So, I loaded the snd_usb_audio module while running a “nonworking” kernel. While lsmod now displayed both “missing” modules, pavucontrol still did not display a usb headset option and neither /proc/asound/cards nor pactl list cards changed.

So, I would appreciate ideas about how to get the newly loaded modules used to detect and play thru the usb headset. This would prove that the lack of these two was the problem.

After that, I will worry about why they aren’t loading with these kernels and how to fix that (unless it is a true kernel bug with the 5.15 and 5.16 kernels).

Thanks in advance.

stevesr0

[Member stevesr0]

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Update.

Since the working and nonworking kernels differ in regard to detecting a usb attached device, I (finally) thought to compare the lsusb outputs with working and nonworking kernels.

With the working kernel, lsusb 9 bus devices, while with a nonworking kernel, only two are listed (bus 001 and 002 for Device 001 – a 2.0 root hub).

In addition to these two, with the working kernel, devices are found on buses 003-007. The headset, a fingerprint sensor and five 1.0 root hubs are also detected.

Since (I understand) lsusb actually obtains its data thru libudev.

Since antiX uses eudev, I wonder whether the nonworking kernels don’t work (with detecting a usb headset for alsa) because they aren’t working completely with antiX’s implementation of these kernels.

If that is the case, then there really is no issue; the antiX install is not designed to “perfectly” use these debian kernels as a straight debian install would supposedly do.

stevesr0

[Member stevesr0]

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Addendum:

re: usbcore. It is loadable when I boot debian kernels 5.15 and 5.16 in my computer, BUT I read that it was built into the kernel several years ago.

Testing this on my two computers with working antix kernels (5.10.88 and 5.10.104), I get the error message, “FATAL: Module usbcore is builtin.”

So, I am puzzled that this module can be loaded into antix from debian kernels, since as a builtin it shouldn’t be possible ??!

stevesr0

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by stevesr0.

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