Missing channels (IEC959) in KMIxer?

I wish to use the S/PDIF (IEC958) output port on my (VIA VT1828S) soundcard.
However, on first switch-on it is never enabled. So I need to open a mixer and select that channel. Mixers that seem to “see” the S/PDIF port are: GAMIX, GMixer & Gmerlin. There may be others, but these are the ones I have tried. But, KMix and ALSA Mixer do not (that I can find) recognise that the S/PDIF port exists.

Question 1. Why does KMix only have a master volume control - no Mic, CD, Line (& most importantly, IEC959) etc. ?
Question 2. If I turn on the S/PDIF in one of the mixers that can see the IEC959, how do I make it permanent?

Best regards, Martin

Hello!

Question 1. Why does KMix only have a master volume control - no Mic, CD, Line (& most importantly, IEC959) etc. ?

It does, but it might not be too obvious; you have to enable the channels.

If the GNOME mixers recognise SPDIF then ALSA does, and, hence, ALSAmixer; I’m not used to using it so I can’t advise.

Question 2. If I turn on the S/PDIF in one of the mixers that can see the IEC959, how do I make it permanent?

If you work out how to use KMix, I presume you use KDE(?), go to: «System settings»→«Multimedia»→«Audio/Video set-up» (middle tab, I’m on a Norwegian system so I can’t be precise). Make the SPDIF port default by moving it to the top.

Olav

NB
I totally forgot, but this is how I do it; however, I do not use PulseAudio, so this might not be approriate for you. PAVUControl might give you some options if you use PulseA.

Hi Olav,

Thank you for taking the time to post back.
Greatly appreciated.

No! It sure is not obvious!

I totally forgot, but this is how I do it; however, I do not use PulseAudio, so this might not be approriate for you. PAVUControl might give you some options if you use PulseA.

Yes, I am using KDE/PulseAudio. And no, I can not find anything in the PA utilities that seem to help! FYI - I have also tried without PA.

Once again, thank you. And looking forward to any other thoughts that folk can offer…

Best regards, Martin

Us pavucontrol and or veromix. Either is easer to deal with then kmix when using multiple outputs. Pulse is neat because you can customize all settings for each app. So you can have one app output at a given volume to a given device.and another app to another device at a different volume.

I had looked at pavucontrol before. However, Veromix is new and that was a step forward.
It allowed me to set an “OFF” profile for my unwanted HDMI sound card and then, as if by magic I was able to select the required channel on the active sound card.
Strange thing is that now all the mixers see the S/PDIF / IEC959 channel as an HDMI channel. No matter, maybe an update (somewhere) will come along and correctly rename my digital out channel?

Regards, and thank you all for the suggestions.

Martin