Hi,

	I've got a Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1 :

00:0a.0 Multimedia audio controller: Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24
[CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop-
ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=slow >TAbort-
<TAbort-
<MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 32 (1000ns min, 6000ns max)
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
        Region 0: Memory at e9100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
[size=4K]
        Region 1: Memory at e9000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
[size=1M]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA
PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
	

I use it *only* via the optical output.

Now it seems the alsa driver that's in 2.5 with mute the optical output
until black magic is performed in any alsa-compatible mixer.

Is there any boot option to tell alsa to activate the optical output
automatically ?

The second question is, with the alsa tools present on freshrpms.net and
optical output activated, the only mixer setting that seem to have an
effect is the DAC.

Is there a way to set this knob as the default sound volume (as a kernel
boot option ...) ?

Why is the dac controlling the volume even when I'm reading a CD (i.e.
digital PCM input, digital optical output, what is the DAC doing here) ?

Sorry about the stupid questions, I found lots of material on building
alsa (not really needed now it's in-kernel) but little on how to use
it:(

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot