speaker-test: allow controlling how long the noise is heard by the user

[jidanni]

$ speaker-test --nloops 1 makes a pink noise for about one second.

On the man page mention how to make this into say a half second, as some users would like to listen to shorter test sounds, and no matter if the user does

$ speaker-test --device hdmi:HDMI -c 2 --nloops 1 --period 5
$ speaker-test --device hdmi:HDMI -c 2 --nloops 1 --period 50
$ speaker-test --device hdmi:HDMI -c 2 --nloops 1 --period 500
$ speaker-test --device hdmi:HDMI -c 2 --nloops 1 --period 5000

what the user hears is exactly the same, therefore --period is not what controls this item.

I am saying that some users can confirm their speakers work without listing to a full second of pink noise, and thus would like a way to listen to a shorter length.

As far as

       -b | --buffer TIME
              Use buffer size of TIME microseconds.  When 0 is given, use  the
              maximal buffer size.  The default value is 0.

       -p | --period TIME
              Use  period size of TIME microseconds.  When 0 is given, the pe‐
              riods given by -P option is used.  The default value is 0.

are concerned, they must be documenting something completely different.

Debian Package: alsa-utils
Version: 1.2.8-1

[perexg]

Yep, it controls the audio buffering parameters. The duration for one loop is hardcoded to 3 seconds for the "all channels" test or 5 seconds for the single channel test (-s).