Asus Xonar D2X, Yamaha RX-V675 and openSUSE 13.1 - S/Pdif toslink no audio

Hello, help a sound noob in linux make himself a nice Christmas present! So, got a nice audio card the D2X and now the Yamaha RX-V675 receiver hooked to my 4.1 Logitech Z560 till I get some nice speakers.
What I think I would like:
-make use of the soundcard via optical (it is a hybrid connector on D2X with adapter for the optical) for music and sound in games and for the system sounds;
-maybe switch audio to hdmi when playing certain movies as the receiver has a ton of options for decoding.
Simple right?

  1. Let me understand - all decoding in such a case (optical connection) will be done only by the receiver? This says that can be only partly also alsa.opensrc.org . What is the proper course of action to identify the problem?
  2. The only thing that works is the HDMI from my Asus Radeon HD9650. Got a red light on the optical link but now it is gone so it’s not working or what? How to enable the link again? Who/what exactly disables this? I mean when (I guess) I am telling the system to enable it in pavucontrol.
  3. Using Kmix and pavucontrol; kmix is kind of retarded. Pavucontrol works fine and shows me through it’s ugly sliders that I got sound, on anything, in any configuration, on the soundcard and the videocard’s HDMI.
  4. Both HDMI and IEC958 are marked in Kmix and pavucontrol as “Stereo” are they really only stereo or not?
  5. What do I have to do to make the receiver emit any sound via optical (no problems with the speakers, setups, cables and such; have at least 2 of each kind and swapped the hell out of them)?

Some info (the motherboards soundcard is disabled):

  • in alsamixer everything is unmutted;
  • aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: D2X [Xonar D2X], device 0: Multichannel [Multichannel]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: D2X [Xonar D2X], device 1: Digital [Digital]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

  • aplay -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default
    Default ALSA Output (currently PulseAudio Sound Server)
sysdefault:CARD=D2X
    Xonar D2X, Multichannel
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=D2X,DEV=0
    Xonar D2X, Multichannel
    Front speakers
surround40:CARD=D2X,DEV=0
    Xonar D2X, Multichannel
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=D2X,DEV=0
    Xonar D2X, Multichannel
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=D2X,DEV=0
    Xonar D2X, Multichannel
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=D2X,DEV=0
    Xonar D2X, Multichannel
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=D2X,DEV=0
    Xonar D2X, Multichannel
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=D2X,DEV=0
    Xonar D2X, Multichannel
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
    HD-Audio Generic, HDMI 0
    HDMI Audio Output

-cat /proc/asound/cards

 0 [D2X            ]: AV200 - Xonar D2X
                      Asus Virtuoso 200 at 0xb800, irq 17
 1 [Generic        ]: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
                      HD-Audio Generic at 0xfe9bc000 irq 54

Let’s make it a step-by-step guide as I didn’t found anything “recent-pulseaudio” I mean not from Jurassic era on this one (if you did, the links are highly appreciated).

Ahhh:

  • rpm -q alsa alsa-utils alsa-firmware
alsa-1.0.27.2-3.5.1.x86_64
alsa-utils-1.0.27.2-4.2.1.x86_64
alsa-firmware-1.0.27-2.1.2.noarch
  • iecset -c 1
Mode: consumer                                                                                                                                              
Data: audio                                                                                                                                                 
Rate: 48000 Hz                                                                                                                                              
Copyright: permitted                                                                                                                                        
Emphasis: none                                                                                                                                              
Category: PCM coder                                                                                                                                         
Original: original                                                                                                                                          
Clock: 1000 ppm
  • speaker-test -Dplug:spdif -twav

speaker-test 1.0.27.2

Playback device is plug:spdif
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 1 channels
WAV file(s)
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy

Maybe I should have post this in Multimedia, or?

Solved! Oh Amorphis sounds just beautifull! One has to mute some slider called S/PDIF - L hmmm don’t know what it is - some loopdevice maybe?

Well done ! - I have looked at the Xonar D2X myself. This information will be valuable to others buying this hardware.