No audio over HDMI using Ubuntu 10.04.3 Server, but works with Desktop

[dcmleung]

I am trying to install Boxee on my Acer Aspire Revo R3610 and started by following this guide. I was able to get audio working on Analog (front headphone jack) by selecting it in the OS's System>Preferences>Sound and choosing the Analog output, but I can't get any sound from HDMI.

I then decided to install Ubuntu Lucid 10.04.3 Desktop out of curiosity. From a vanilla OS install, all I did was run alsamixer to unmute SPDIF 1, and I got sound worked over HDMI! No need for .asoundrc or any other tweaks. Started Boxee and the sound from navigating the menu, movies, music, etc all came from the TV without needing to change Boxee's audio settings.

I'm trying to find out what the differences are between the Desktop and Server installs. I made sure the following were installed on Server: alsa-utils, alsa-base, linux-sound-base and libasound2, all of which were already installed. The only difference I noticed was Desktop gave me the sound effects in System>Preferences>Sound whereas the Server install had the sound effects greyed out. Is there something missing in the Server install that would allow me to make sound work over HDMI as easily as it did in my Desktop install?

Thanks!

[histo]

I just went through the fun of getting this to work on Debian Squeeze with my revo. You need an .asoundrc and in there mine is set to plughw:1,7 . Also in boxee then you go to settings > sound > and set the output to default. I'll post a copy of my asound which may work for you.

pcm.dmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 1024
ipc_key_add_uid false
ipc_perm 0660
slave {
pcm "hw:1,7"
rate 48000
channels 2
period_time 0
period_size 1024
buffer_time 0
buffer_size 4096
}
}

pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "dmixer"
}

P.S. I also noticed that the default libflashplayer.so that ships with boxee does not have vdpau support. So full screen flash plays like garbage on ION and ION2 systems untill you replace their /opt/boxee/system/players/flashplayer/xulrunner-x86_64-linux/bin/plugins/libflashplayer.so with an updated one. Basically just sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree and copy the Ubuntu or Debian one from /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so to the /opt/boxee........ one.