Subject: Sound on jessie

From: Alan McConnell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 13:44:09 -0400 (EDT)

For some reason, my sound doesn't work on my new machine with its present
jessie install.  It worked on my old machine(which had jessie) and it
works fine here on Windoze(I use youtube to play old Bernie Sanders' speeches,
or Mozart<g>).  So what do I have to do?  I can't find alsa to install, and
pulsesudio is already installed.

Any and all suggestions/fixes appreciated.  Please spare the imprecations and
chastisements!

Alan

---

From: Joe <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 19:54:05 +0100

On Fri, 16 Sep 2016 13:44:09 -0400 (EDT)
Alan McConnell <[email-masked]> wrote:

> For some reason, my sound doesn't work on my new machine with its
> present jessie install.  It worked on my old machine(which had
> jessie) and it works fine here on Windoze(I use youtube to play old
> Bernie Sanders' speeches, or Mozart<g>).  So what do I have to do?  I
> can't find alsa to install, and pulsesudio is already installed.
> 
> Any and all suggestions/fixes appreciated.  Please spare the
> imprecations and chastisements!
> 

Could I first suggest that you get hold of a recent version of
Knoppix? Not just to solve this problem, but you seem to be at a point
where you need a variety of help. It takes forever to boot up, but it's
worth waiting for.

It is based on Debian, and its particular selling point is its hardware
driving abilities. It is based on unstable rather than a released
Debian, but it is still usually possible to see how it achieves
something and to transfer the knowledge to a standard Debian. I won't
say that I've never seen hardware that beats it, but it doesn't happen
often.

More specifically, sound has always been a problem with Linux, not
least because of the variety of systems involved, some of them
optional, and the helpful instructions on the Net which cover many
years and are mostly obsolete. I've no idea of the current state of the
art, as I actually haven't had a sound problem for at least a year, so
someone will correct any of my recollections which are incorrect. I
also don't have a jessie system, but sound changes relatively slowly,
and my wheezy and sid installations look fairly similar.

Basically, there is a low-level driver for the hardware you have, and
various layers of software on top of that. Probably the first job is to
check that you are getting the hardware driver(s) installed, and the
sound card(s) is/are available.

I'm fairly sure pulseaudio is not yet standalone, it operates through
alsa, and there are other tools to operate alsa directly. Rather than
try unfamiliar software to check for cards, look in /proc/asound/cards
(cat /proc/asound/cards). If you don't see the sound device you expect
to see, you're probably not getting the driver installed. If you see
more than one device, and the one you expect isn't the first in the
list, I've reached the limit of my knowledge. I've solved that one
before, but alsa configuration has changed since then, and systemd
has arrived, and you need up-to-date instructions.

If you see the expected device first in the list, then probably all is
well with drivers. Check the audio mixer settings. Cards have different
numbers of level adjustments, you may need more than one turned up to
get internal sound.

If you have a speaker icon on your desktop, right-click and run the
audio mixer. If you don't, try alsamixer from the command line. If it
can't find that, install the package alsamixergui and try again. When
you can see that the right sliders are turned up (all of them if
necessary) try speaker-test -c 2 from the command line, which should
give you noise tests on the two main channels. If you get to that
point, everything ought to work. If not, come back and we'll try to get
further.

-- 
Joe

---

From: deloptes <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 08:57:12 +0200

> where you need a variety of help. It takes forever to boot up, but it's

Joe we are not doing advertisements for this or that distro. Either provide
an answer or do nothing please ...

"Based on unstable" - pathethic

thanks and regards

---

From: Anthony Baldwin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 07:56:48 -0400

>>> imprecations and chastisements!

I was having a similar problem just last week after an update>safe upgrade..
After scratching my head for several days and trying everything I could 
think of (including querying this list), I found I had something called 
PulseAudio-volume-control installed, a graphical tool to manage volume 
for PA , and, when I found it, it showed "analog output" as muted (no 
idea why), I unmuted it, and had my sound back!
If you can't find it, install it and check all the volume settings.
It's listed in the repos as pavucontrol.
so just apt-get install pavucontrol .
  (or aptitude if you prefer)
aptitude install pavucontrol

-- 
http://www.baldwinlinguas.com
translations, localization,
multilingual web development
EN, ES, FR, PT

---

From: Alan McConnell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 09:43:04 -0400 (EDT)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Baldwin" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 7:56:48 AM
Subject: Re: Sound on jessie

     Many thanks for your suggestion, Anthony.  But I've already tried
     pavucontrol, which I had installed quite a while ago.  So I'm still
     stymied.  

     Alas for the days of wheezy, when everything _worked_!!

Alan, who is pleased at least to be able to get on line from his jessie install

---

From: Lisi Reisz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 22:56:13 +0100

> Alas for the days of wheezy, when everything _worked_!!

Wheezy is LTS (though admittedly more successfully for servers), so if 
everything Just Worked, and you liked it, why did you change?  There are 
indeed valid reasons, but what is yours?

Lisi

---

From: Alan McConnell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:30:52 -0400 (EDT)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisi Reisz" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 5:56:13 PM
Subject: Re: Sound on jessie

Wheezy is LTS (though admittedly more successfully for servers), so if 
everything Just Worked, and you liked it, why did you change?  There are 
indeed valid reasons, but what is yours?
       Lisi, as you must know, Debian moves on; eventually Stable becomes
       Old-stable, and after a while support, especially security support
       disappears.  I have been using Debian at least since Sarge.  I forget
       the different Toy Story names(potato, squeeze. etc), but I eventually
       went to wheezy, which is now very old.  I have never had trouble
       moving from one Debian to the next.  Until now.  jessie has given
       me immense trouble, vastly more than any other installation.  Knowing
       what I know now: perhaps I should have stayed with wheezy until
       stretch became stable.

       I hope that answers your question.  I don't think the above answer helps
       you, or anyone else, to solve my problems(the one remaining one, after
       all this time and effort, is _sound_/alsa).  But I am trying to be
       cooperative.

       In another related post you ask:
By what method did you try and what reason have you to think that it is
already installed?
       You are referring to alsa.  My answer: I have alsa-utils in my
       /etc/init.d/, and I have looked at this script.  I get no complaint
       from it upon booting.

Best wishes,

Alan

---

From: Felix Miata <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:11:13 -0400

Lisi Reisz composed on 2016-09-17 11:56 (UTC+0100):

> Alan McConnell wrote:

> indeed valid reasons, but what is yours?

I sense Alan expects everyone here has read and remembers every post he has 
written. He told us his, though indirectly:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2016/09/msg00296.html

Synopsis:
Wheezy was on old puter, with mature hardware supported by FOSS.
Jessie is on new (unspecified model) Dell (with Win10), with unknown hardware 
with unknown FOSS support.

New puter's design date is *probably* newer than Jessie, which would mean 
problems can be *expected*, because he's not tried an OS that's newer than 
his puter, such as Stretch.

Win10 works without problems because Dell made sure of it. Dell didn't do 
that with Jessie or any other Debian, and probably with no other Linux either.

If Alan wants serious help, he needs to stop keeping his hardware info 
secret. Ordinarily I would expect he could share the copious output provided 
by alsa-info.sh, but it seems to be absent from Jessie, so he would need to 
find it elsewhere in order to run it, e.g.:
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=a59c5f2edf8a61119a94d34a5d8afc13703f0b71

cf. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=531005
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

   Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

---

From: Felix Miata <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:10:15 -0400

Synopsis:

---

From: Brian <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:13:03 +0100

On Sat 17 Sep 2016 at 20:10:15 -0400, Felix Miata wrote:

> Jessie is on new (unspecified model) Dell (with Win10), with unknown
> hardware with unknown FOSS support.

Contrasting the behaviour of machine A with machine B (worked on my old
machine, works fine with Windows etc) and indulging in nostalgia is only
of passing interest when the objective is to get an aspect of machine A
to function. If is like telling a doctor you ran a marathon every week
twenty years ago when the present issue is having two broken legs.

> that with Jessie or any other Debian, and probably with no other Linux

Information about the audio card can be extracted from the output of
'lspci -v'. It could even be publicised here as an a aid to diagnosis.

ALSA is built into the kernel so it is fruitless expecting to find
packages to install it. However 'lsmod | grep snd' would be useful for
people to see.

> http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=a59c5f2edf8a61119a94d34a5d8afc13703f0b71

Pulseaudio is sometimes thought to be the culprit in audio issues. It
can be taken out of the picture with 'apt-get purge pulseaudio'
(reinstatement is easy) and any other sound-related packages installed
in an endeavour to solve the problem also purged.

Besides the nature of the hardware a bunch of users would be interested
in its capabilities. 'aplay -L' and 'amixer' would go some way to
satisfying their curiosity.

Meanwhile, the device might spring into life and consequently the four
outputs of interest would not be needed.

-- 
Brian.

---

From: Lisi Reisz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 12:55:13 +0100

On Sunday 18 September 2016 11:13:03 Brian wrote:
> > I sense Alan expects everyone here has read and remembers every post he
> > has written. He told us his, though indirectly:
> >

Yes.  Someone had referred to upgrading and I mistakenly followed it.  My 
memory isn't up to yours or his.  Mea culpa.  I have elsewhere asked whether 
the chip was a Skylake.  That can cause problems with Jessie (sound was one 
of them).  Been there.  Done that.  Got the very bloody tee-shirt.  I did, 
elsewhere in the thread, ask why he didn't use something other than Jessie, 
which might suit better.  I was actually thinking of Stretch or Mint.  (I 
woudl use Stretch. ;-)  )  But any more modern distro might get on better 
with what may be very modern (certainly fairly recent) hardware.

(Why didn't I use Stretch, instead of Skylake with Jessie?  It wasn't my  
computer, and would have involved using either another DE or not-yet-ready 
software.)

Lisi

---

From: Brian <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 18:40:55 +0100

> of them).  Been there.  Done that.  Got the very bloody tee-shirt.  I did,

I don't believe we know the make and model (Dell?) being used; it could
be a factor in forming a solution. Who knows? (Rhetorical, we all know
who knows). Add it to to the list of hoarded useful information.

I recollect your tussle with a Skylake machine. You were your usual
informative self and co-operated with the troubleshooting process; wear
the tee-shirt with pride. :) We have more tee-shirts to hand out but
a quality claimant in this thread looks less and less likely.

> with what may be very modern (certainly fairly recent) hardware.

Jessie isn't that old (2015) but things do move on, so when there a
hardware problem (and we do not know that in this case) stable/testing
is a good jumping off point.
 
> computer, and would have involved using either another DE or not-yet-ready 

Lucky you, being able to play with machines of others. I only have the
opportunity to muck up my own.

-- 
Brian.

---

From: Felix Miata <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 13:18:12 -0400

> Alan, who is pleased at least to be able to get on line from his jessie install

Those who helped, and those who use Google, deserve an update to the original 
thread explaining that you solved the problem, and as best you can, how you 
did it/what the problem was.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

---

From: deloptes <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 18:17:55 +0200

Alan McConnell wrote:

> I was having a similar problem just last week after an update>safe
> upgrade.. After scratching my head for several days and trying everything
> I could think of (including querying this list), I found I had something
> called PulseAudio-volume-control installed, a graphical tool to manage
> volume for PA , and, when I found it, it showed "analog output" as muted
> (no idea why), I unmuted it, and had my sound back!

Usually there is a problem with something muted, so if pulse is OK go down
and check alsamixer.

If for some reason alsamixer (alsa-utils) is not in ubunto - I don't know.

If this does not help provide information on your audio chip

lspci | grep Audio

cat /sys/bus/hdaudio/devices/hdaudioC0D0/chip_name
ALC3226

It could be (writing from experience) that new kernel with drivers enabled
HDMI for your chipset and now you have a different cards order - If you
have HDMI audio, you may try disabling this in bios.

regards

PS: To all "recommending" - Knoppix - it is great, but it is not the way to
put it forward here (IMO).
Now that we know Alan is using Ubuntu, he could even try ubuntu live in
former or current version to compare.

---

From: Lisi Reisz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 22:57:47 +0100

> former or current version to compare.

He keeps saying that he is using Jessie.  Why do you think he is using Ubuntu?

Lisi

---

From: deloptes <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 00:46:48 +0200

> He keeps saying that he is using Jessie.  Why do you think he is using
Sorry I seem to have misread something.

---

From: Curt <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 12:05:15 +0000 (UTC)

> Sorry I seem to have misread something.

Easy to do in these protracted, tangential, niggling threads that
devolve into acrimony and invidiousness before expiring in a liminal
whimper.

-- 
“It is enough that the arrows fit exactly in the wounds that they have made.”
Franz Kafka

---

From: Brian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2016 19:14:06 +0100

> devolve into acrimony and invidiousness before expiring in a liminal

Stick to the day job; your prophecy skills leave much to be desired. No
acrimony; no invidiousness; no whimpers. Just complete silence from the
OP in response to requested information.

-- 
Brian.

---

From: Alan McConnell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 12:47:23 -0400 (EDT)

----- Original Message -----
From: "deloptes" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 12:17:55 PM
Subject: Re: Sound on jessie

Usually there is a problem with something muted, so if pulse is OK go down
and check alsamixer.
         I have tried that. Both channels(?) are set to 100, and I can move
         them lower with the Arrow keys.  Otherwise I don't know how to
         operate this ncurses device.

Now that we know Alan is using Ubuntu, he could even try ubuntu live in
former or current version to compare.
         <LOL>  I am not part of that "we".  I am not using Ubuntu.  Furthermore
         if I want to hear some nice music or listen to a Sanders speech on
         youtube, I get out of jessie, run my Windoze, use the Edge brower
         and go to youtube, where the sound works just great.

         This suggests to me, and I hope to my readers here, that there is
         something wrong with the way  alsa  works, or doesn't work, here.
         I can't imagine what the difficulty is, since the cogent suggestions
         that have been made here have not worked.

Perhaps others have some ideas?

Alan

---

From: Joe <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:47:10 +0100

On Sat, 17 Sep 2016 12:47:23 -0400 (EDT)
Alan McConnell <[email-masked]> wrote:

> 
>          This suggests to me, and I hope to my readers here, that
> there is something wrong with the way  alsa  works, or doesn't work,
> here. I can't imagine what the difficulty is, since the cogent
> suggestions that have been made here have not worked.
> 

First, what did you try, and with what result? Are you seeing your
sound device in /proc/asound/cards, which volume control(s) did you get
working, what error message if any did speaker-test return?

-- 
Joe

---

From: Alan McConnell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 16:58:55 -0400 (EDT)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 3:47:10 PM
Subject: Re: Sound on jessie

> Perhaps others have some ideas?

First, what did you try, and with what result?
      I tried to install alsa.  No result -- I think it is already installed.
      I installed everything else I could with a name involving alsa.
      I have run    ps aux | grep alsa   with no result.
      As already described, I tried alsamixer.

Here is the result of    cat /proc/asound/cards:

 0 [PCH            ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
                      HDA Intel PCH at 0xdf320000 irq 142
 1 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                      HDA NVidia at 0xdf080000 irq 17

     I have no idea what the above means.  Presumably one or both are
     functional.

     I remind you and others that my sound works splendidly when I switch 
     OSes and log into my Windoze.

Thank you for showing an interest.

Alan

---

From: deloptes <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 01:09:19 +0200

> I have no idea what the above means.  Presumably one or both are

So which one is your preferred card (where your audio system is plugged in)?
Have you tried setting the other in the Output configuration of pulse audio?
Before upgrading - did you use pulse or plain alsa?

arecord -l
can help see the cards in their order

arecord -L
will give you more detailed information, which you can use in aplay to test
each card directly

aplay -Dsysdefault somewavfile.wav
aplay -Dplughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 somewavfile.wav

After I upgraded to jessie mixer was muted. Unfortunately alsamixer is
hooked to the default pulse audio, so to get it working with the card
directly rather with pulse I use alsamixer -c0 you can also go for
alsamixer -c1

BTW alsa is not a process running so ps -A  | grep alsa does nothing.

I hope this helps
regards

---

From: Lisi Reisz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:01:07 +0100

(I am troubleshooting, not carping.)

Lisi

---

From: Ric Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 10:32:52 -0400

>      Alas for the days of wheezy, when everything _worked_!!

Use alsamixer first, as a general rule. pavucontrol cannot override 
alsa's settings. Set alsa correctly, pulse will work. Ric

p/s wheezy could blow up nicely as well. <cackles>

-- 
My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
http://linuxcounter.net/user/44256.html

---

From: Joe <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 08:56:20 +0100

On Sat, 17 Sep 2016 08:57:12 +0200
deloptes <[email-masked]> wrote:

> >   
> 
> Joe we are not doing advertisements for this or that distro.

'Advertisement'? I'm recommending something I've found to be a useful
troubleshooting tool, over many years. It is of no use as a permanent
installation, as it cannot be upgraded.

> Either
> provide an answer or do nothing please ...
> 

Why don't you have a look at the bit you snipped?

-- 
Joe

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 09:03:36 -0400

> installation, as it cannot be upgraded.

+1 (for the reference to Knoppix not being an advertisement, but rather a 
helpful referral to a useful troubleshooting tool)

---

From: Lisi Reisz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 22:54:07 +0100

> helpful referral to a useful troubleshooting tool)

Plus another.  Great hardware troubleshooting tool.  And comes on a CD.  Big 
plus again.

Lisi

---

From: Jude DaShiell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 03:33:31 -0400 (EDT)

First try which amixer and if that isn't found, download alsa-utils.
Next sudo -H amixer set Master 85%;alsactl store
On 
Sat, 17 Sep 2016, deloptes wrote:

> Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 02:57:12
> From: deloptes <[email-masked]>
> Resent-Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 06:57:45 +0000 (UTC)
> Resent-From: [email-masked]
> 
> Joe wrote:
>

--

---

From: steef <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 20:11:09 +0200

hi alan,

install synaptic if you haven't allready done so.
do  'sudo synaptic'  and search for 'alsa'  and install (as root) alsa-base alsa-tools the alsa-toolsgui and the aslsamixergui. this last 
package give you some useful possibilities. and in my humble opimion, please get rid of pulse-audio. for me that program is and was allways 
a nuisance. good luck!

steef

groningen, the netherlands