How to enable the digital out on Soundblaster X-fi under Linux with ALSA

I couldn't find any mention of this on the net so I thought I may as well post it. The soundblaster X-fi has a jack on the back that they call the "flexijack." It doubles up as a coaxial digital out if you buy a mono minijack to phono coaxial cable you can use it on Linux.

I couldn't get any sound out of it and was about to give up until I managed to unmute the digital out using this command:-

  amixer sset 'Digit-IO',0 unmute

The digital out is okay but not in the same league as a m2tech hi-face async usb to coaxial converter that I tried it against.

How to increase the available memory on a HTC desire ... (low internal memory) error

It's very easy to fill up all the internal memory on a desire (150mb) with applications and data and get the dratted low internal memory error. This guide will double the available space and get you on a stable and fast rom that will also increase your battery life. While Ice cream sandwich might be a fine idea for the latest more powerful (and power hungry) phones, it's not a great idea for the desire. The desire has one of the biggest and most mature Android communities out there and is a perfectly decent phone if you put a custom rom on and buy a class 10 sd card to expand it's storage.

http://developer.sonymobile.com/wp/2012/03/30/learn-about-the-technical-differences-between-gingerbread-and-ics/

How to install

Install a file manager so you can backup as much as you can to your sd card then copy the sd card backups to your computer by connecting up your usb lead.


Download cyanogenmod and copy this to your sd card. I've tried lots of other roms for the desire and cyanogens is the most stable I've found with all extra features I needed built in (there's a reason why Samsung bought him!)

S-unlock your phone (GSM for the UK) using this tool http://alpharev.nl/ and install a custom HBOOT partition scheme ( Bravo CM7 r2 ) to give you a larger data partition. I wouldn't recommend using the new unlocker tool yet called revolutionary.

Boot into recovery mode and install your stable rom from the sd card.

N.B for me the bootloader took 2mins to run, slowly trying each different image before it let me select recovery.

Boot into your new rom and start readding applications. As well as an extended data partition you will now also get the option of moving applications to your SD card, however be aware that their data will still be stored in the data partition.

The one change I made to cyanogenmod was to install a different kernel that I've found to be very stable and well tested.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=883598

http://famille.viollet.free.fr/DeFrostKernels/ManU-2.1-GB-HAVS-128-BFS.zip

If you want more flexibility with where programs are stored then follow this optional step to partition your SD card.

Optional Enabling sd-ext and data-ext

If you think you still might fill up your new internal memory (300MB)  then you can extend it further by partitioning your sdcard to allow data and applications to be installed there.

Now that your phone is rooted you can install better recovery partition, first re-install your filemanager.
Then use it to download 4ext to your sd card and install it using the file manager. Run the app and flash your recovery partition.

Boot into the recovery partition and partition your sd card using this guide. This will flatten anything you have on the SD card though. You did make backups right?

http://freefr.dl.sourceforge.net/project/runnymededesire/AROME-GUI/4ext_Partition%20Guide.pdf

After rebooting download the simple2ext app and you will be able to start moving apps to the data-ext partition that you just created.

Finishing off

Make sure you use the rom manager app built into cyanogen to make a backup of your phones system configuration incase you break something so you can recover it at a later date using the recovery partition.

I'd recommend Titanium backup for backing up all your applications automatically each day to Google drive.