FATDOG, HDMI, Audio, ... future

[Clarity]

ALL of my 2024 test-normal use PCs connect to a TV as its monitor. In corporates, in my past life, monitors that were DP connects have speakers, too. Today's monitors have speakers along with the TVs that many are using today. Thus in these layouts, booting systems connected to these monitors have audio ABILITY but not active.

In my case, as maybe the case with many, external speakers are not connected/needed. This being the case, FDs boot to desktop without active audio ability. This requires unfamiliar users to HUNT for what is wrong and how to resolve without giving up on Fatdogs.

Solution?
In the picture below, its apparent that the OS knows that HDMI is present. In the future, could FD development consider on pristine boots to activate audio on the existing HDMI path ... knowing that there is audio capability there?

This may be much more difficult that it appears OR this fact of presence may just be an oversight in builds.

HDMI aware.png (87.3 KiB) Viewed 660 times

[Clarity]

FATDOG "knows"

HDMI aware 2.png (53.41 KiB) Viewed 612 times

[Clarity]

This is provided as an example. Live-boot of a mainline distro yields an OOTB operational audio experience as seen by this:

[Tag365]

Sound driver selection should be a step in quick setup, to make sure the audio can be heard, and make sure the system is playing to the right sound card and output.

[fatdoguser]

Sound driver selection should be a step in quick setup, to make sure the audio can be heard, and make sure the system is playing to the right sound card and output.

You might add network connection to that, when not automatically hard ethernet wired/connected, and dpi setting, and ....

But perhaps simpler would be to have quick-setup open (chain to) fatdog-control-panel as its final stage along with some helpful text (help file window) for the uninitiated.

An easy way to get a bootable USB stick of Fatdog would also help, as a common stumbling block seems to be that "I couldn't get it working" ... often due to a slowish initial load/boot in a era of where patience is a older-gen word. Or at least restore the progressive dots that used to be shown (or that could be extended to use changing sentences instead of dots - something to read rather than just watching dots).

[Clarity]

This is additional info from my last picture showing an example.

That pic was taken on the same PC that I run FD v901 on. That PC is shown in an earlier post of a pic from Hardinfo. Hope it is clear that the same physical PC was used detailing information on audio concern in all 3 posts in this thread.

Better PC reference

HDMI aware 3.png (62.23 KiB) Viewed 555 times

[Clarity]

Found this executable file which seems to be misplaced in development:

Code: Select all

# ls /usr/share/sounds/
alsa  bell.wav  osmo  purple
# cd /usr/share/sounds/
# ./bell.wav 
sh: ./bell.wav: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error
# ls -l bell.wav 
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 133354 Jul 13  2023 bell.wav
# ./bell.wav --help
sh: ./bell.wav: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error

Thought development might want to investigate.

[Keef]

There isn't anything to investigate really, it's a .wav (audio) file, not a binary. Just click on it and it will play.

[Clarity]

No offence to you, BUT, If you review my info you will notice that it is an executable. Have you taken a look? When you "ls -l" that file, what are you getting?

Further, 'yes' I know how to "chmod" to change it. (I am on a pristine v901, right now)

This may just be a minor development err. We are all human ...

[Keef]

ls does not tell you it is an executable. It is a .wav file, and does what .wav files do. Even gives the expected error when you try to run it like an executable. I'm really confused as why you even wanted to try that. It is in a directory called 'sounds' for a start.

[step]

Thank you all. The executable bit will be off in the next version of Fatdog64.

[Keef]

Well I was wrong about the 'ls' bit then. Still a bit odd as to why you tried running it though.

[Clarity]

Thanks @step

@Keef I like to cover that with you, but not to derail this thread. The concern of the thread is about whether we can get audio OOTB in FD future. I discovered this anomaly in using FD's included audio files and posted the question.

I was a little miffed at your question as there are many reasons why we look at things that are out-of-character. Hopefully you can think of some yourself in reasons one would investigate oddities.

If you have any ideas for OOTB audio in light of the changes that have occurred in physical components and the subsystems that suport them over the past few years, we are all ears.

Any help is helpful in this community.