[PD] PD really slow, crashing and no sound

[William Robinson]

Hi there.

I was interested to try out pd after reading about it in Linux User and
Developer magazine. I have had some problems getting it running though.
Currently, I am failing to get any audio through alsa, oss or jack.
Also, however I run it, the interface is REALLY slow. With new windows
opening taking at least 10-20 seconds. In particular, anything i seem to
click on the testtone.pd (Media->Test Audio and Midi) window takes at
least 30 seconds to respond.

These are the error messages (relating to OSS) I get when I run pd
-verbose (but I get no sound):
opened /dev/dsp for reading and writing

opened audio output on /dev/dsp; got 2 channels
bytes per sample = 2
setting nfrags = 8, fragsize 1024

audiobuffer set to 50 msec
OSS: requested audio buffer size 8820 limited to 8192
opened audio input device /dev/dsp; got 2 channels
bytes per sample = 2
OSS: issuing first ADC 'read' ... Pd: system call timed out
...done.


When I specify -alsa on the command line, I get the following message,
about 1 second after the program starts:
audio I/O stuck... closing audio

When I try with the -jack switch instead, none of alsa, oss or jack are
selected in the media menu, even if I try to select it, I get no output,
and the Audio Settings dialog will not work. Also, there appears to be
no extra clients in jack. 

The compute audio switch is responsive, but it doesn't seem to make a
difference to the audio with it being on. 

I have tried using the current gentoo portage ebuild, pd-0.37.1 and now,
I have ./configure, make, make installed pd-0.38-0test8. Both have the
same issues. Other software versions, all using gentoo portage: jackd
0.98.1, alsa-lib 1.0.5, tk 8.3.4-r1, tcl 8.3.4. I'm running linux
2.6.8.1 with the realtime-lsm module in and loaded with the correct
group for me set. My alsa driver is via82xx and my audio hardware is the
chipset found on an Asus A7V600 motherboard. It's listed in /proc/pci
thus:

  Bus  0, device  17, function  5:
    Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 96).
      IRQ 11.
      I/O at 0xe000 [0xe0ff].

It seems to work fine with jackd and all alsa applications. Below I've
put my /proc/cpuinfo if it's any use and I have 512MB of memory on this
machine.

If anyone can offer me any hints, I would be very greatful.

-bill





/proc/cpuinfo:
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 6
model           : 8
model name      : AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2000+
stepping        : 1
cpu MHz         : 1667.523
cache size      : 256 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips        : 3284.99