During setup and configuration of the AExBox, a multimedia home entertainment and Automation box, I ran across an issue where no sound was emitted from an SAA7134 chipset based card in linux.
The solution is simple.
Use a either radio or fm (part of the fmtools package) to tune the card. For example, ‘fm -q -d /dev/radioX’ -T forever 94.8 65535′. Then using the command line, run ‘aplay /dev/dspX’ where X is the SAA7134 device no. of the tuner card. You can script this process for convenience.
Hope this helps you all home media center enthusiasts out there.
TIP: FM Radio sound using SAA713X based Tuner cards in Linux