When recording sound, only the left channel is recorded, even when I request stereo. For instance, I type "arecord -f cd new.wav". The resulting file is a stereo wav with nothing on the right channel. The same thing happens when using gramofile, which records through OSS emulation. I have tried this with three different sound cards (emu10k1, ens1371, intel8x0). Now, all these use the ac97 codec, so the problem may be there. --- emerge info follows: --- Gentoo Base System version 1.6.14 Portage 2.0.54 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.4.4, glibc-2.3.5-r2,uclibc-0.9.26-r7,uclibc-0.9.27-r1, 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1300MHz distcc 2.18.3 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] ccache version 2.3 [enabled] dev-lang/python: 2.4.2 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.12 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r6 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium3 -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium3 -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms strict userpriv usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X alsa apm audiofile avi bitmap-fonts bzip2 cdparanoia cdr crypt cscope curl dv dvd dvdread eds emboss encode esd exif expat ffmpeg foomaticdb fortran gif glut gmp gphoto2 gstreamer gtk gtk2 imagemagick imlib java jpeg junit lcms libg++ libwww mbox mikmod mmx mng mozdevelop mozilla moznocompose moznoirc mp3 mpeg ncurses network nodrm ogg oggvorbis openal opengl pam pcre pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline real rtc samba scanner sdl spell sse sse2 ssl tcltk tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev usb v4l v4l2 vorbis xmms xv xvid zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, MAKEOPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
If I upgrade media-lib/alsa-lib to version 1.0.11_rc2 (from the current stable 1.0.10), then the problem goes away.
2.6.15 uses mixed alsa driver that is partly incompatible with alsa-lib 1.0.10, if you're using in-kernel drivers.