# Dual sound cards...

## Aynjell

Hi guys. I was wondering...

I have a sound card (onboard) and an audigy 2 Zs. Is using both an option? I tried enabling the onboard sound alongside the audigy, but it seems that it took over. So, I'm assuming it automatically picks that one as teh default and then backburns the other. Is there a way to define the audigy as default? Because I relly liked using the onboard for skype and such in windows and I want to transfer my habits over to linux. Anyway, jes askin...

Also, if anybody owns an ASUS K8N-E Delxue, with the realtek ALC850, and has gotten it to work, I'd appreciate some infromation on that too. I can get it working with single streams, but getting the mixing working isn's so easy for me.  :Sad: 

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## Taladar

I have an Asus A8V-E Deluxe. I believe it uses the same chipset.

It works with the alsa via82xx driver. Just put

```

ALSA_CARDS="via82xx"

```

in your make.conf and emerge alsa-driver, alsa-headers, alsa-lib, alsa-tools and alsa-utils (hope i didn't forget one, basically everything named alsa-*).

Linux should work fine with multiple soundcards but I never tried it myself.

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## Aynjell

Well if I remmeber right the difference between those boards is that mine has an nForce 3 and yours has a via k8t00 something or another. Doubtful this will work but I iwll try out of desperation...  :Wink: 

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## Gentree

DONT go emerging "everything alsa" if you have alsa in you kernel . Do one or the other. I find it gives more control disabling in the kernel once you have the drivers sorted out since that way you can select which versions of alsa-drivers to use , not just be stuck with the one the kernel uses.

 *Quote:*   

>  I tried enabling the onboard sound

 Could you say what you did to "enable" it.

Being clear helps.

Mixing is not really and issue with the driver. It's dmix. Read the alsa guide  and the wiki but I cant garantee it will work. I have wasted much time.

you can define multiple sound cards in /etc/modules.d/alsa . AFAIK the first entry will be the default.

HTH  :Cool: 

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## omnicloud

When I tried this, I used my onboard audio and my ensoniq card and it made it so I couldn't use my ensoniq. I just decided to disable it and not bother. The sound quality on the ensoniq was much better anyway.

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## songpenguin

Hello, I just got a second sound card too. I cleared up the problem of having my old onboard card becoming the default by making both my sound cards modules and then modprobing them (or autoloading them) so that the new card's module is loaded first.

Cheers,

Songpenguin

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## Aynjell

And that is exactly what I had to do. Works well, though on occasion it bugs out and makes the onboard the default. This requires a manual delmod and annoys the piss out of me.  :Sad: 

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## SilverXXX

Add this line to make.conf:

```
ALSA_CARDS="emu10k1,via82xx"
```

Then, re emerge alsa-driver, and change /etc/modules.d/alsa this way:

```
# ALSA portion

alias char-major-116 snd

# OSS/Free portion

alias char-major-14 soundcore

##

## IMPORTANT:

## You need to customise this section for your specific sound card(s)

## and then run `update-modules' command.

## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.

##

##  ALSA portion

alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1

alias snd-card-1 snd-via82xx

##  OSS/Free portion

alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1

##

# OSS/Free portion - card #1

alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss

alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss

alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss

alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss

alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

##  OSS/Free portion - card #2

alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss

alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss

alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss

alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

# Set this to the correct number of cards.

options snd cards_limit=2
```

And then launch modules-update.

I use external alsa driver, because kernel ones are usually much older.

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