USB audio problems

[NeverwherE]

Southpole,

Thank you very much for your reply. I have found it difficult to get a good reply from someone who most likely knows what they're talking about. I'm still kind of a linux noob, but on the other hand, I am adapting to it quickly. I have found that my other pc, a windoze failure, has become severly infected with a plethora of baddies. I will be converting it to linux as well, as I have been learning linux on my acer aspire one netbook, and I have had some success. The issues I have encountered have been on my netbook, as regards to the updates that I regularly do. I have now found that something else is broken. Since the xorg updates that I installed early this morning, I have no longer been able to toggle my desktop effects. I succesfully switched back to disabling the desktop effects, but now when I try to enable it again, the screen goes black for a second, flashes the plymouth screen and then returns to the login screen. I also cant hear any of the sounds on Pidgin when I IM. It's like fedora 11 is falling apart as the updates move us closer to fedora 12. What's the deal with that anyway? I should be able to update my fedora box and make it more and more stable, as the updates are created to make a more stable OS! Since I am not so linux savvy yet, it's hard for me to identify when and where the breaks are occuring. The only idea I have had, is to re-download the ISO image of the live gnome version of fedora from the fedora site from a faster internet connection, and set up my flash drive again to boot the live image, using Unetbootin. Do all the updates WITHOUT using yum presto, via the terminal (YUM update). Then shutdown, and reboot the system to see if I get the same issues. If not, then I have to wonder if yum presto is breaking the code a little with the diffs. Leaving gaps somehow that make the OS unstable. I hope this will help, unless someone can tell me how to fix all the problems I have been having with the updates.

[theresonant]

Really glad things sorted out. I was running out of ideas. If you plan on following my advice, try to avoid the first one It is dangerous, and it won't help with anything now anyway, since ALSA got cured.

Try to use your system without any other sound system - just pure ALSA, and try to configure Skype, your media player and everything else to use an ALSA device. Mine is set to "default" in the KDE Multimedia Settings using the GStreamer backend for Phonon, and they all work nicely together. Maybe it will work for you too, and it doesn't hurt anything.

As I said, maybe plain ALSA is just enough for average stuff, and when you really want to go nuts with your computer's sound, use JACK.

[theresonant]

NeverwherE, you should have started a different topic with your issue, but here's what I have to say:

I'm using a HP laptop with Intel stuff inside it (graphics, audio and wireless card), and I was happily using Ubuntu 8.10, when I wanted to upgrade to Ubuntu 9.04. That's when my X.org server did the same thing it did to you. Crash when enabling Compiz / special effects. My screen turned to garble and took me to the login screen (that's what usually tells you X has crashed). I got fed up with that, so I installed Fedora 11, and loads of other things started to work, not just the effects.

Therefore, I'm kinda wondering what's wrong with the Fedora 12 updates. I'm quite afraid that once I'll upgrade to Fedora 12, my graphics card will experience the same thing. THAT WOULD BE REALLY NASTY. Anyway, the Fedora team recommends a clean install of a Fedora system, so upgrading individual packages might not be good practice. It sounds bad, but backing up everything, wiping your current system and installing a clean Fedora 12 might be better. That's what I did with Ubuntu 9.04 vs. Fedora 11.