Add sound to the dumb linux boxes so it can do alarm, etc... (no replies)

Yesterday, I ordered an usb sound card at newegg for $1.80 shipped. It was RCAC-17001. Newegg changed the price to $29.99 today, but it is easy to find a cheap replacement on eBay, such as item 193156653105. I guess they were from the same factory. :P

I got one of these long time ago from newegg for free after rebate. Just added it to my dockstar so this dumb box can have sound. :P

Here are the steps.

0 Update uboot, get debian file system running. I just used Bodhi's Debian-5.2.9-mvebu-tld-1-rootfs-bodhi.tar.bz2. Login as root to do all these steps.

1 apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install mpg123

2 Insert the sound card to the usb, run dmesg, you should see some info

[  165.543475] usb 1-1.4: new full-speed USB device number 3 using orion-ehci
[  165.697551] usb 1-1.4: New USB device found, idVendor=1b3f, idProduct=2008, bcdDevice= 1.00
[  165.706678] usb 1-1.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[  165.715062] usb 1-1.4: Product: USB Audio Device
[  165.720405] usb 1-1.4: Manufacturer: GeneralPlus
[  165.796265] media: Linux media interface: v0.10
[  165.805142] input: GeneralPlus USB Audio Device as /devices/platform/ocp@f1000000/f1050000.ehci/usb1/1-1/1-1.4/1-1.4:1.3/0003:1B3F:2008.0001/input/input0
[  165.885289] hid-generic 0003:1B3F:2008.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v2.01 Device [GeneralPlus USB Audio Device] on usb-f1050000.ehci-1.4/input3
[  165.916825] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
[  165.923134] usbhid: USB HID core driver
[  165.950098] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio

3 run cat /proc/asound/cards

you should get something like

 1 [Device         ]: USB-Audio - USB Audio Device
                      GeneralPlus USB Audio Device at usb-f1050000.ehci-1.4, full speed

This card # 1.

So create asound.conf file in /etc/. Content of asound.conf file

defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.ctl.card 1

Save it.

4 Get speaker ready, connect the speaker to the usb sound card, get the mp3 file, run

mpg123 mp3filename

Done...

Now your dockstar can be an alarm clock ... :P

You guys who have the M300 which needs a usb device for assisted SATA booting, try adding this card to see if it works. :P