First of all. This is for a Asus P5Q-EM motherboard with Intel G45 onboard. This doc could work for others, but of course I have no clue!

You can verify the hardware first by running :  aplay -l

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 aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC1200 Analog [ALC1200 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC1200 Digital [ALC1200 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 3: INTEL HDMI 0 [INTEL HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

You’ll notice card 0 device 3 is the Intel HDMI Audio.. If you don’t have the Intel, look for HDMI and figure out the card and device id for the HDMI out.

A way to test the audio from the card is available by running this speaker-test on the console.

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speaker-test -Dhdmi:Intel -c6 -twavq

If that doesn’t work, maybe you don’ thave the intel card, so the -D would not work for your. You can try (replace 0,3 with whatever card,device you have from the output above).

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speaker-test -Dhw:0,3 -c6 -twavq

The Howto Start for getting 5.1 HDMI Audio in Ubuntu 10.04

1) Remove  PULSEAUDIO (replace with ALSA)

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sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio

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sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get install alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base alsamixergui
sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common gnome-alsamixer

2) Reboot

3) Set default audio card (HDMI)  *this step I don’t think does much.. but I did it and my system works… so why not

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gstreamer-properties

4) THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP.! This will set the HDMI out as the default card so Boxee will work properly with your audio

Create an ~/.asoundrc file for the user you login with when you run Boxee

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$ cat > ~/.asoundrc

#START
pcm.dmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 1024
ipc_key_add_uid false
ipc_perm 0660
slave  {
pcm "hw:0,3"
rate 48000
channels 2
format S32_LE
period_time 0
period_size 1024
buffer_time 0
buffer_size 4096
}
}
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "dmixer"
}
# END

• ctrl-d to end the cat

5) Disable HARDWARE Acceleration for Video. Otherwise Boxee will just crash on any local video playback.

• run Boxee
• go to – settings -> media -> advanced
• uncheck — ‘enable hardware assisited decoding when possible’
• Render Method: Software (or Auto might work)

6) Sound Config Setup

• run Boxee

• go to – settings -> system -> Audio Hardware

• Audio Output: Digital

• DTS Capable Reciever: checked
• Dolby Digital (AC3) Reciever: checked
• Audio output device: default
• Passthrough output device: default`
• Downmix multichannel audio to stereo: UNCHECK

** NOTE: I will post how to get BOXEE installed soon since that was also a pain in the ass with 10.04 release.