How do I configure JACK audio server to automatically use a specific card? - audio

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 studio on a HP Pavilion dm1 4200sg netbook. It's pretty much a fresh install. I try to start jackd server by running
jackd -R -d alsa
and it fails with output:
JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 10
control device hw:0
control device hw:0
audio_reservation_init
Acquire audio card Audio0
creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|1024|2|48000|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|32bit
control device hw:0
ALSA: Cannot open PCM device alsa_pcm for playback. Falling back to capture-only mode
Cannot initialize driver
JackServer::Open() failed with -1
Failed to open server
Running aplay -l gives the following output:
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
I find that by running
jackd -R -d alsa -d hw:1
jackd starts successfully. I would like to configure my machine so that hw:1 is the default option (i.e. to make the original 'jackd -R -d alsa' command work). Can anyone help me to do this?
I've tried editing ~/.asoundrc to be
pcm.!default {
type hw
card 1
}
ctl.!default {
type hw
card 1
}
but this doesn't seem to work. I'm well out of my comfort zone here and any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

I've found a workaround. It doesn't configure JACK server but alters the order the sound cards are listed.
I first entered into the terminal:
sudo lshw -c multimedia
which showed which modules the two cards were using. They were both using 'snd-hda-intel'.
I then entered into the terminal:
cat /proc/asound/card0/id
cat /proc/asound/card1/id
Which gave ids 'Generic' and 'SB' for cards 0 and 1, respectively.
I then added the following two lines to the end of the file '/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf'
options snd-hda-intel id=SB index=0
options snd-hda-intel id=Generic index=1
After rebooting the machine, card 'SB' was loaded into position 0 and
jackd -R -d alsa
correctly started.

Answer 2

First, in a terminal window, run this command:
cat /proc/asound/cards.
You’ll see output a bit like this:
0 [SB ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI SB
HDA ATI SB at 0xfcef8000 irq 16
1 [DSP ]: H-DSP - Hammerfall DSP
RME Hammerfall DSP + Digiface at 0xfcff0000, irq 20
2 [NVidia ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
HDA NVidia at 0xfe57c000 irq 32
The “name” of each soundcard is in square brackets.
With this information, you can now refer to a particular device as, for example hw:DSP now you can execute the command:
jackd -d alsa -d hw:DSP
And thats all, taken from:
http://www.jackaudio.org/faq/device_naming.html
EDIT: added code tags

Answer 3

First, open up alsa-base.conf:
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
Find the following line:
"options snd-hda-intel index=-2"
And change it to:
"#options snd-hda-intel index=-2"
Restart your machine and try again. You may have to set the proper sound device (alsa) for your programs.