oss_hdaudio(7)

💖 oss_hdaudio — Intel High Definition Audio (AZALIA) 💖

okay bestie, pull up a chair, we're talking about oss_hdaudio(7) from the OSS Devices corner of the manual universe. this is the Open Sound System driver for Intel's high definition audio, aka "Azalia" ✨

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so the tea is: this driver supports Intel 915/925 chipsets with the Realtek ALC880 and CMedia 9880 8 channel codecs. iconic combo honestly.

the HDA driver is out here supporting, and I quote:

• 8-96Khz Playback/Recording 🎧
• 8 or 16 or 32 bits
• 2, 4, 6 or 8 channel audio.
• SPDIF digital output and Input
• AC3 passthrough

no cap, that's the whole list, and it's giving range. 💅

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🎀 HDAUDIO MIXER 🎀

okay this part is lowkey the most important thing to understand. the Intel HDA mixer is a new type of mixer that doesn't have the normal volume controls you'd find on AC97 or legacy SB devices. nope, not here.

instead, the HDA mixer presents a concept of Jacks, and you can configure any jack to be either an output or an input jack. you're literally the main character of signal routing. 🫶

some motherboards may not correctly initialize the jacks according to their color and functionality, but in general here's the configuration that should generally be followed:

• Orange = Center/LFE
• Blue = Line-in
• Black = Rear
• Green = Front
• Grey = Side
• Pink = Mic

some Azalia codecs support front panel connectors, so if you see fp-green and fp-pink connectors, then those are for front panel speaker and mic/line-in Jacks. yes queen, front panel representation. 🦋

there's also a function selector for most of the analog audio jacks (for example connector.pink.mode). this selector is used to control if the jack is used as an input (microphone or line in) or output (front, rear, side, speaker, etc). one selector, two destinies. 💜

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😭 KNOWN PROBLEMS 😭

ngl, this section is the vibe check that hurts.

in general, Azalia based systems (laptops/motherboards) would require a custom driver to work properly. and because there are an enormous number of different systems, it is not possible to develop such custom drivers for all systems. so a generic driver is used for systems that don't have dedicated drivers. periodt.

unfortunately, the mixer and control panel interface (see ossmix(1)) for "generic" systems is very cryptic and difficult to understand. like, it's not giving intuitive. 💀

so to solve problems with volumes or signal routing you need to start ossxmix(1) and change the controls one at time until you get the desired effect. one. at. a. time. bestie. that's the method. 🙈

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• hdaudio_jacksense — enables jack sensing mode when the hdaudio driver is loaded. in this mode all I/O pin's that are not in use will be disabled as well as the mixer controls that are related with them. in this way the mixer/control panel will become more intuitive. however, OSS will need to be restarted with soundoff; soundon every time new inputs or outputs are attached to the audio jacks. Default : 0.

NOTE! hdaudio_jacksense=1 works only in some systems. many laptops and motherboards don't support jack sensing. so like, don't be shocked if it doesn't hit on your machine. 😭

• hdaudio_noskip — Disable skipping unconnected jack. all mixer controls will be shown, even for disabled I/O pins. Can get values 0-7. 1-7 is a bitmask, where every bit masks a different check. Bit 3 (= value 4) overrides jacksense check too. Default: 0 - unconnected jacks are skipped.

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• /etc/oss4/conf/oss_hdaudio.conf — Device configuration file.

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

4Front Technologies

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okay that's the whole page, you ate it, you understood it, we love that for you. 🌈💖

cute little sign-off: this edition dropped on 11 February 2015, and it comes to you from the OSS Devices family of man pages. byeee 🎀🧚⭐