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Thread: Interpid Sound Solutions

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
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    4,377
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    Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

    Interpid Sound Solutions

    Intrepid 8.10 Sound Solution
    also works with Hardy Heron 8.04
    with multimedia support

    If you are using Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 go here

    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1130384

    If you have just upgraded to or installed Intrepid or Hardy or Jaunty and you have some sound somewhere, but not everywhere for everything, this is a fast way to get all the missing stuff you need and give you some tools to figure out what is going on. If you hear the startup sound but nothing else, or if some applications work and others don't, this is for you. If you have no sound at all, there is a link at the end of this post for more extensive troubleshooting help but you should try this first anyway as it may solve your problem and will not make matters worse.

    Make sure that your system is fully updated. (Jaunty is still somewhat of a mess with pulseaudio so if something is weird wait for an update or file a bug report)

    Essential Packages
    First you need to get some missing packages with Synaptic. These packages were not installed by default but are important for getting your sound working properly:

    asoundconf-gtk

    This is a little Default Sound Card application for choosing the default sound card for alsa. (This may not be necessary anymore with Jaunty)

    gnome-alsamixer

    This is a gui mixer, far easier to use than the command line alsamixer.

    alsa-oss

    This is the wrapper for oss applications so they will use alsa instead of grabbing the sound card all for themselves

    libasound2
    libasound2-plugins

    These are the plugins for alsa

    padevchooser

    This is the Pulse Audio device chooser and will pull in the pavucontrol which is the Pulse Audio Volume Control and papref which is the Pulse Audio Preferences along with the Pulse Audio Volume Meters. (This is now included with Jaunty)

    gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio

    This is the gstreamer plugin for pulseaudio

    ubuntu-restricted-extras

    This is the package with all the restricted codecs and java and flashplayer so you can watch youtube and play your mp3s,etc..

    If you have other applications like mplayer, vlc, amarok, or audacious be sure to get any extra packages available for them also.

    Setting things up
    Once you have all these packages installed, close any application that may be trying to use sound and go to System/Preferences/Sound and set all the preferences from automatic to PulseAudio except Default Mixer Tracks which you should set to your sound card. Go to System/Preferences/Default Sound Card and choose pulseaudio.

    Next, right click on the little speaker on the top panel, that is the Panel Volume Control. Click Open Volume Control and make sure it is set to the same thing as the Default Mixer Tracks. Click on Preferences and make sure that Master and PCM and whatever else you want to control are selected. Make sure that any boxes labeled SPDIF or IEC958 are not checked. Close the Preferences box. Push up the sliders in the volume control and make sure the little speakers do not have little red mute marks on them. Go to Applications/Sound and Video/GNOME ALSA Mixer and see if there is anything you missed because sometimes, for some cards, not all the options are in the Panel Volume Control.

    Go to Applications/Sound and Video and select Pulse Audio Device Chooser. This will put a little icon on the panel near the Panel Volume Control. Click on the new icon and choose Volume Control. This will open the Pulse Audio Volume Control. Go to Output Devices and see if your sound card is there, it will be listed as ALSA PCM on front:...(ALC88) via DMA or whatever your sound card is. If you have a usb device it will be listed as ALSA PCM on front:...(USB Audio) via DMA or something like that. Make sure the sliders are up and the device is not muted.

    If any of the above is giving you problems, try rebooting.

    Now, open Rythmbox and play something. If you have nothing handy just play one of the radio stations, you should hear something. In the Pulse Audio Volume Control/Playback you should see something like this
    Rythmbox: Playback Stream
    and some Volume sliders that you can adjust.

    More than one Device
    If you have more than one device listed in Output Devices, Rythmbox may be playing in the wrong one if you do not hear anything so right click on the stream and choose move stream and move it to another device.

    If you have more than one device and you want to use them all, like a usb headset and your speakers, go back to the Pulse Audio Device chooser on the panel and select Configure Local Sound Server/Simultaneous Output and click the box:
    "Add virtual output device for simultaneous output on all local sound cards"

    Now you can right click on the stream and move it to your new device. You should have sound from all your sound devices now or at least a clue about how it is supposed to work.

    Other stuff
    Another thing you may need to do, Check in System/Administration/Users and Groups that your users and root are enabled as members of the following groups:
    pulse
    pulse-access
    pulse-rt
    This seems to be a particular problem for some people after getting recent updates.

    Extras
    I usually do this right after every install/upgrade.It is updated for Intrepid now and will really get you dialed in for sound and video (not updated for jaunty yet):

    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683

    KDE4 Phonon and Pulseaudio
    If you are using Intrepid or Jaunty with KDE4.1 or KDE4.2/Kubuntu you should read this

    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1055591

    (If you are using KDE4.2 see post #9 in that thread.)

    If this did not work for you, or you want to get your digital output or surround sound working, or you are using UbuntuStudio or jack, or you just need more information, you can go to my 10,000 page guide here, it was written for Hardy but also works for Intrepid, Jaunty testing is ongoing but the basic troubleshooting should help:

    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=843012

    An Italian language version of this post is here. Many thanks to caracuri for the translation.

    http://caracuri.altervista.org/blog/?p=129
    Last edited by markbuntu; April 20th, 2009 at 12:15 AM. Reason: typo

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Nottingham, UK
    Beans
    17

    Re: Interpid Sound Solutions

    Great!! I was having real trouble with my sound, but following this has fixed it up perfectly! Ta v much.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Mississauga, Ontario, CAN
    Beans
    4
    Distro
    Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

    Re: Interpid Sound Solutions

    Thanks very much, I've been going nuts trying to figure out how to get audio working properly, this did it!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
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    156

    Re: Interpid Sound Solutions

    Quote Originally Posted by markbuntu View Post
    ok. I did what it said in your post. It worked!!!. Now flash 10 in firefox IS USING pulse as evidenced by a stream in pavucontrol:

    ALSA plug-in [firefox]: ALSA playback.

    THank you!!! (I don't know how this works, but followed your steps and it works now)


    However, I have two questions:

    1) the flash player in firefox has a very low volume even though it's (stream) volume is set too 100% in pavucontrol. While, simultaneously the banshee stream gives me a good volume at 100% in pavucontrol. I have set my sound card volume to max using the volume applet in gnome bar
    2) WHY do I (...the user) have to take so just to set up audio properly????? It's annoying have to configure so many things in my fresh install. Sound is just one of them. Why can't the ubuntu devs just make it work??? I am on ubuntu 8.04.


    I hope this configuration will last a few months without breaking...although even as right now, its not perfect, because my overall volume in my headphones has reduced very much even after setting all volume settings to max and configuring the system as your post suggests.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Beans
    36

    Re: Interpid Sound Solutions

    Sadly didn't help with my issue with S/PDIF. even when I switch everything to pulseaudio and install all the packages you have listed, it only plays AC3/DTS audio through it, and those only when mplayer or VLC uses the force AC3/DTS through spdif-option. All OS sounds etc still go through analog. Audio chip is ALC883 on a Intel ICH8 chipset. Annoys the crap out of me when I had this working like 3 months ago perfect and then some kernel update(I think) broke it :/

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
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    4,377
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    Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

    Re: Interpid Sound Solutions

    Quote Originally Posted by spandanj View Post
    ok. I did what it said in your post. It worked!!!. Now flash 10 in firefox IS USING pulse as evidenced by a stream in pavucontrol:

    ALSA plug-in [firefox]: ALSA playback.

    THank you!!! (I don't know how this works, but followed your steps and it works now)


    However, I have two questions:

    1) the flash player in firefox has a very low volume even though it's (stream) volume is set too 100% in pavucontrol. While, simultaneously the banshee stream gives me a good volume at 100% in pavucontrol. I have set my sound card volume to max using the volume applet in gnome bar
    2) WHY do I (...the user) have to take so just to set up audio properly????? It's annoying have to configure so many things in my fresh install. Sound is just one of them. Why can't the ubuntu devs just make it work??? I am on ubuntu 8.04.


    I hope this configuration will last a few months without breaking...although even as right now, its not perfect, because my overall volume in my headphones has reduced very much even after setting all volume settings to max and configuring the system as your post suggests.
    There is a tiny volume control in the flashplayer applet. Make sure it is turned up all the way.

    As far as your second question goes, the Ubuntu audio team seems to be asleep at the wheel for the last few distros, switching to pulseaudio and leaving out the pulseaudio tools.....

  7. #7
    Join Date
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    Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

    Re: Interpid Sound Solutions

    Quote Originally Posted by Zarok View Post
    Sadly didn't help with my issue with S/PDIF. even when I switch everything to pulseaudio and install all the packages you have listed, it only plays AC3/DTS audio through it, and those only when mplayer or VLC uses the force AC3/DTS through spdif-option. All OS sounds etc still go through analog. Audio chip is ALC883 on a Intel ICH8 chipset. Annoys the crap out of me when I had this working like 3 months ago perfect and then some kernel update(I think) broke it :/
    There are a number of issues with digital output depending on which card/driver you are using and I did not want to get into all that since this is meant to be a quick start guide.

    Due to the inconsistent way that the alsa driver writers deal with secondary devices it is difficult for the pulseaudio devs to come up with some way to consistently detect digital inputs and outputs. They are trying and so are the alsa people.

    Nevertheless, for now you can make a sink for digital output that will appear in pavucontrol and can be used like any other sink.

    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=776958

    This is the original ticket at pulseaudio where Lennart explains the problem.

    http://www.pulseaudio.org/ticket/139

    You can also read this from alsa:

    http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/DigitalOut

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Kingston, ON Can
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    140
    Distro
    Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

    Re: Interpid Sound Solutions

    Thank you markbuntu:

    I tried what you suggested. Unfortunately I was not able to find assoundcof-GTK, libsound2 or libsound2 - plugins in synaptic. any ideas where I might get them

  9. #9
    Join Date
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    Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

    Re: Interpid Sound Solutions

    Did you misspell these in your search with Synaptic?

    It is a common thing to do, I do it all the time. In fact I just discovered I misspelled libasound in the OP (I wrote Libasound). But anyway that is fixed.

    asoundconf-gtk
    libasound2
    libasound2-plugins
    Last edited by markbuntu; December 3rd, 2008 at 01:04 AM.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
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    Hidden!

    Re: Interpid Sound Solutions

    so far I have not lost any sound since following along with this.
    Solid 3 days with not losing sound is really impressive. I used to have to reboot twice a day due to sound shutting down.

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