CrossOver Support - Community Forums

Ok, I got tired of Fedora being "fun" with regards to kernel issues on my hardware so moved my gaming tower and lappy over to EL6. Sofar so good except one quirk in the audio. The winecfg only sees onboard audio, not my usb headset. So I tried disabling it in Pulse (.9.xx for the record). Disabled everything except that in Pulse. No dice. Still shows only my onboard.

Now I have found that usually if wine is broken, so will be the case for Crossover. Now, this is one case that really gets me. Wine is totally broken. Refuses to play test sounds. But CX at least will work with my onboard.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Andrew

[andrew@localhost ~]$ cat /etc/centos-release
CentOS release 6.3 (Final)

[andrew@localhost ~]$ rpm -qa | grep crossover*
crossover-11.2.0-1.i386

[andrew@localhost ~]$ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
HDA Intel at 0xf7df8000 irq 28
1 [NVidia ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
HDA NVidia at 0xfbdf8000 irq 17
2 [Headset ]: USB-Audio - Logitech USB Headset
Logitech Logitech USB Headset at usb-0000:00:1d.2-1, full speed

[andrew@localhost ~]$ winecfg
err:alsa:ALSA_CheckSetVolume Could not find 'PCM Playback Volume' element
err:alsa:ALSA_CheckSetVolume Could not find 'PCM Playback Volume' element
fixme:mixer:ALSA_MixerInit No master control found on HDA NVidia, disabling mixer
fixme:mixer:ALSA_MixerInit No master control found on Logitech USB Headset, disabling mixer
fixme:winmm:proc_PlaySound Couldn't play header
fixme:winmm:proc_PlaySound Couldn't play header
[andrew@localhost ~]$

I would think the secret is related to the Wine versions. Crossover has Wine at it's core (I believe 1.4.?), but that might be entirely different from the vanilla Wine on your distro (I wouldn't know).

For instance, I have Wine 1.5.9 on my Arch box, and I would expect a very different behavior between CX and Wine because of the jump in versions. I do know there has been some work in Wine for sound in the last iterations, but that is the extent of my very limited knowledge. You might want to look into thoses changes, as they might explain things.

Well I was trying to find out how to get the audio to work correctly, and be able to use my headset appropriately. But usually an issue with wine is indicative of a larger issue that will cause CX to go nuts.

But either way I have CX, and want it to work with my USB headset. How?

Since I'm interested in buying a usb headset, I continued looking into this (to know the problems surrounding this), and I have a couple of questions.

1) Are you running 32 or 64 bit CentOS? (perhaps related to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=672044 )

2) Ever tried using alsamixer to manage your headset. If you can't, maybe the problem is with Alsa, not wine or pulseaudio.

Further, I found something about for an "automatic switch" in the ArchLinux wiki, and it should apply as it seems pretty distro neutral to me (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio#Automatically_switch_to_Bluetooth_or_USB_headset). Perhaps that would help out.

Anyway, I'll keep looking later today, but that's what I've got for now.

J-P Simard wrote:

Since I'm interested in buying a usb headset, I continued looking
into this (to know the problems surrounding this), and I have a
couple of questions.

1) Are you running 32 or 64 bit CentOS? (perhaps related to
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=672044 )

2) Ever tried using alsamixer to manage your headset. If you can't,
maybe the problem is with Alsa, not wine or pulseaudio.

Further, I found something about for an "automatic switch" in the
ArchLinux wiki, and it should apply as it seems pretty distro
neutral to me
(https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio#Automatically_switch_to_Bluetooth_or_USB_headset).
Perhaps that would help out.

Anyway, I'll keep looking later today, but that's what I've got for
now.

1) Both of my machines in question are 64-Bit. One is CentOS, the other is RHEL 6.3 Workstation
2) Well I set my audio levels there for my alsa only apps, didn't know about managing them thru there. Ill look into that.

Ill look into that switch method. If I break the system, no biggie. I have my /home/ on a separate disk anyway :D Eventually on the network for many things :D

Thanks for the tips. Oh and BTW, this is an issue with Pulse prior to 1.xx. EL6 is on .9.xx. So Fedora, OpenSUSE and the like will not experience that.

My impression is that sound system is just half broken in RHEL when it comes to dealing with multiple audio devices.

Just tried attaching a bluetooth headset: sure, wine does not see it at all. If you select it as default audio output, wine makes some sounds into it, but it is distorted as hell and seems that pulseaudio to blame, not crossover; skype can not playback propely there too.

It is the price we need to pay if we want to stay with Gnome2 for five more years 😊

Thanks. I have been getting wonky results here too. I get the garbage on one of my systems (centos), nothing on another (centos, main rig), and when I setup OSS it works great (rhel, old ass non gaming worthy lappy).

To say the least, I am lost here.

One solution I do have is to get a stereo plug headset again, and use the front panel plugs. That beats trying to deal with the multiple device problem. And the problem really only lies in the fact I am on my Mumble chat server while gaming and use voice activation to PTT key up. If I have the speakers spitting out sound, that will trigger a PTT. Oh well.

I hope that whatever they do with RHEL7, its cleaner than what Fedora has been putting out. F15 was great, but F16 was barely tolerable by me of all people, and F17 refuses to work (bad kernels too often).

If anyone else has any input, I would love to hear it :D

Thanks!
Andrew.

EDIT #1 : After thinking a moment, I wonder what would happen if I kill off at the BIOS level my integrated onboard audio ... its that, the nvidia board (which thankfully is not being seen properly, as I dont want it seen), and my usb headset ....

EDIT #2 : That did the trick. I think ... I got the bloop noise in the audio test. I am firing up Steam to see if CS:S has noise.

EDIT #3 : Yep works great. But ... for some reason pure wine is still all pissey about my headset. I am using the wine from epel x86_64. Not sure if that matters. Will update what goes down under the i686 builds.

EDIT #4 : Ok, the x86_64 build is broken. Use i686 instead (from epel that is). FWIW here is my repolist, if there is something hideously wrong let me know please. AFAICT, I have no conflicts, but that's MY knowledge. And on my rhel-desktop machines, its pretty much the same. BTW, I may have to reload nux onto one of my spare machines to try it out, basically a desktop orientated EL. Although, you can get most of the functionality from any other EL6 + nux repo.

adobe-linux-i386                            Adobe Systems Incorporated                                                  17
adobe-linux-x86_64                          Adobe Systems Incorporated                                                   2
base                                        CentOS-6 - Base                                                          6,346
cr                                          CentOS-6 - CR                                                                0
elrepo                                      ELRepo.org Community Enterprise Linux Repository - el6                     202
epel                                        Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - x86_64                           7,637
extras                                      CentOS-6 - Extras                                                            4
google-chrome                               google-chrome                                                                3
nux-dextop32                                Nux.Ro RPMs for general desktop use                                        910
nux-dextop64                                Nux.Ro RPMs for general desktop use                                        943
playonlinux                                 PlayOnLinux Official repository                                             29
rpmfusion-free-updates                      RPM Fusion for EL 6 - Free - Updates                                       162
rpmfusion-nonfree-updates                   RPM Fusion for EL 6 - Nonfree - Updates                                     22
updates                                     CentOS-6 - Updates                                                         256

BTW (being slightly offtopic) I really doubt RHEL7 is going to be usable. I think it would be disaster similar to RHEL4.

That's just simple: RedHat is no good in maintaining desktop applications in RHEL at all. They do a good amount of work keeping server components stable and solid but for desktop seems that they just do not care -- grab some fedora snapshot full of ugly betas and release candidates and freeze it as is. So it is just as good as its Fedora prototype, no bugs are likely to be fixed, no even minor updates. Having some unstable outdated version of Gnome3 full of ugly bugs and with major features missing for next 5 years? Thanks, no, I'd better keep up with Fedora. RHEL6 is all different story -- I just use it because I want to wait UNTIL Gnome3 would be polshed enough to be usable. It is not at the moment and won't be for two years at least.

(and yes, if you use Wine for whatever reason, you should use i686 build)

arkanoid wrote:

BTW (being slightly offtopic) I really doubt RHEL7 is going to be
usable. I think it would be disaster similar to RHEL4.

That's just simple: RedHat is no good in maintaining desktop
applications in RHEL at all. They do a good amount of work keeping
server components stable and solid but for desktop seems that they
just do not care -- grab some fedora snapshot full of ugly betas and
release candidates and freeze it as is. So it is just as good as its
Fedora prototype, no bugs are likely to be fixed, no even minor
updates. Having some unstable outdated version of Gnome3 full of
ugly bugs and with major features missing for next 5 years? Thanks,
no, I'd better keep up with Fedora. RHEL6 is all different story --
I just use it because I want to wait UNTIL Gnome3 would be polshed
enough to be usable. It is not at the moment and won't be for two
years at least.

(and yes, if you use Wine for whatever reason, you should use i686
build)

I can't disagree with RHEL4 too much, I used it and it worked. I'll leave it at that. Postgres, Dovecot, Samba, BIND worked great. But I hated how they managed GNOME on there. That got me to just using the CLI/ssh to do anything with em. Not that its a bad idea, but sometimes there are jobs that firing up a GTK app is simpler. Now, with RHEL5 & 6, I love em.

Re RHEL7, its up in the air for me right now. RHEL4 was rushed. That was clear to me. RHEL5/6 weren't and it showed. Looking at the RHEL7 process, I think they may have their process down to a science and can do a proper release. But we shall see I suppose. The main thing I want is proper pulseaudio. I do some audio work, and am looking at getting into video soon, and with an outdated wonky pulse release that is present in RHEL6, I can't wait to get on an EL that isn't suffering that issue. SLED is an option perhaps, but I no longer have access to entitlements with SuSE. Plus I am not sure if their pricing jives with me. I like $300 for workstation and $50 for desktop.

As for GNOME3, its perfectly usable, and I quite enjoy it. There are tweaks that make it exactly how you want a desktop done. From the old GNOME2.x desktop, to Macs, to Win7, to funky new ideas. Then you have Cinnamon, which is a great WM. I wouldn't mind using GNOME3 some more, but really, I need something rock solid as an EL, and RHEL6 is the best I can find. Plus if you want good desktop apps, the nux repo has a ton of em. Or just use Stella.

http://li.nux.ro/stella/
http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/07/31/look-what-stella-brought-to-centos-6-3/

Maybe it is just my unhappy Nvidia/dual monitor combo, but for me Gnome3 introduced whole new set of glitches and unfortunately many of them have major impact on how Crossover windows and fonts are handled. I am pretty sure it is unlikely to be fixed in RHEL7.

BTW have you seen RERemix? I really like it, almost everything just works out of the box, multimedia players and stuff, Infinality is already there and installing Skype is just "yum install skype".

The only vital thing that is still missing is ec crypto support.

No I haven't seen that. I will need to look into it.