Fedora 10 Sound doesn't work

Hi folks, I could use some debugging help. I am in the process of doing a Fedora 10 install and although the rest of the hardware features seem to work as expected, sound does not work at all. I've read the other posts I could find on this subject and tried those suggestions, to no avail. I should note that I am new to Linux and still very much in the early stages of learning. Here's what is going on:
I followed the Fedora 10 XFCE install per instructions at http://jorge.fbarr.net/2008/11/10/fedor ... spire-one/. Neither internal speakers nor the headphone jack provide any audio. A speaker icon shows on my top desktop toolbar at the right as well as a tiny slider "meter" to the right of the icon. My /etc/modprobe.d/sound file specifies model=acer-aspire.
When I open the right-click desktop menu, under Multimedia it includes the PulseAudio Volume app, which I verified that settings are active.
When I open the panel using the speaker icon on the top menu bar, I get a different Volume Control panel with only Master and Capture on it. On both of these I've tried both the default and the HDA Intel Device settings.
I don't see any indication that I am in a Mute state.
Sound worked fine with Linpus.
I don't know what to try next. Is there a way to uninstall all the audio drivers that may possibly be there, then try reinstalling whatever it is that I need
Any debugging ideas?
Steve

 

when you click the speaker and the volume selector is shown make sure that you have the volume slider for 'PCM' showing and turned up full

phil

 

Hi Phil,
Thanks for the suggestion. When I open the volume selector there are no sliders for PCM or anything other than Master and one other parameter (I don't remember what). I could go into the Settings manager and open the Sounds settings, and change the device from Default to the HDA chip. That gave me more choices including PCM, but checking that box wouldn't "stick" and I always ended up back with just the two sliders when I closed. It seemed that there was no way to "save" those settings and get them to appear in the Volume sliders.

I did a full reinstall of fc10 last night, again following the noted instructions to the letter, and tested before letting the system do any updates. Still the same "no sound" result.

Do I need pulseaudio and/or alsa drivers installed? I'm not seeing reference to them in the System or Settings menus.

Reading other posts indicate this may be a common problem with some recent fc10 kernal updates.

For now I guess I am back to Linpus... sound works ok there.

Steve

 

steve if you still have fedora installed try following my post here for fixing sound issues in F10 >> viewtopic.php?f=71&t=12195&p=79447

and let me know how you get on

phil

 

Hi Phil,
I had gone back to Linpus in order to meet some imminent travel needs, but I restored my earlier Fedora 10 image tonight and tried the instructions on the post you referenced. Still no sound. All the steps seemed to go fine other than the final "pulseaudio -k", which errored that there was no process running. A restart made no difference in audio output.
I'm puzzled, as there appear to be so many satisfied FC10 users.
Steve

 

what that means is that pulseaudio either wasn't installed on your fedora image (had you removed it trying to go back to just using alsa?) or it wasn't running.

first run the xfce Taskmanager and check if pulseaudio is running, if it is run

Code:

gnome-sound-properties

and make sure it is set like this,

[attachment=1:x2ivn5wb]g-s-p.jpg[/attachment:x2ivn5wb]

then click your sound applet on the taskbar and make sure it is set like this,

[attachment=0:x2ivn5wb]sound.jpg[/attachment:x2ivn5wb]

if not click the 'select controls' button and tick all the boxes. then make sure that it is like the image, that should get the sound working for you so try that and let me know how you get on

phil

 

Phil,
I'm back to the "baseline" Fedora 10 install, prior to doing the changes you suggested in the link above.

Pulseaudio is not showing up in Taskmanager, nor is alsa or any other audio tasks that I can identify. I do see an xfce4-mixer-plugin task.

 

The Pulseaudio task IS running (I didn't have all the tasks showing in Taskmanager).
Running gnome-sound-properties generated an error dialog:
"Unable to start the settings manager 'gnome-settings-daemon'. Without the GNOME settings manager running, some preferences may not take effect. This could indicate a problem with Bonobo, or a non-Gnome (e.g. KDE) settings manager may already be active and conflicting with the GNOME settings manager".

As mentioned before, I am running XFCE and saw the xfce4-mixer-plugin running.

I clicked OK in the error dialog and got the Sound Preferences window you show. Everything was set to Autodetect. I changed settings to match those you show. I also show a PCM-2 device in the table at the bottom.

When I click on the speaker icon in the start bar, I get a Volume Control applet that only shows Master and Capture. The Options menu is set to Default device.

When I RIGHT-click on the sound icon, the Device shows as Default with “When clicked” showing “xfce4-mixer”. I have an option to change the device to HAD Intel if desired. But nothing that indicates an Alsa mixer. Changing Devices to HAD Intel gives me more slider options but I never can get to the three-tab Mixer-HAD Intel (Also mixer) screen that you show.

I have an mp3 file to use for testing. I’ll have to install an mp3 player or codec to actually do testing, unless you have another suggestion (I had at one time in an earlier build had VLC and mplayer installed but not in this particular build yet).

Maybe I’m just confusing things?

We could go to PM on this issue if you wish…

Steve

 

i keep forgetting that i have updated to xfce4.6 so there will be differences in how things look compared to the older version but the volume controls should be the same, as long as you have chosen 'HDA Intel' as the device to manage in the xfce mixer preferences and that you have both the pcm and master channels higher than zero, and that you have everything set to pulseaudio in the gnome settings you should be ok.

for getting mp3 playback i would install audacious and the necessary plugins then try to see if the mp3 is giving any output before we continue any farther

btw i am running xfce too, in fedora you can't run xfce without running some gnome stuff
phil

 

I had similar problems and have found a temporary solution. After system load set level of 'Front' slider in sound settings as nonzero and sound appears. It's a pity that these operations it is necessary to make each time after system load because of resetting the level of 'Front' to zero . Anybody know the right solution of this problem?
P.S. Sorry for my bad English

 

I installed VLC for test purposes. No audio.

I have the Sound Preferences window set exactly as shown. But I cannot get the Mixer window you show. When I right-click menu Settings, Mixer Settings, I'm showing HDA Intel but PCM.0 is not checked... I can check it, but it won't stay checked when I close and re-open that settings window or restart.
Clicking the speaker icon gives me a Volume Control window that includes Master (max setting), Headphone, PCM (max setting), Front, Front Mic Boost, Capture, Capture.1, and Beep.
gnome-sound-properties is set exactly as yours and includes Volume, PCM-2, and In-gain. The Sound Preferences window also has buttons to Test the various settings and I presume this should work, but I get no audio from them.
BTW, gnome-sound-properties deletes all icons from my desktop and renders my right-click menu inoperative until restart.
"Volume" always boots up set to 100%.
I should probably get a screen shot utility installed so I can capture some of these screens for you.

In the interim I've started playing with Sidux and am rather impressed so far.

Steve

 

I now have screenshots of all the associated windows if they are of interest. 5 files.
Steve

 

what to do is install alsa utils

Code:

su -c 'yum -y install alsa-utils'

once it is installed set your volume to the required level then run

Code:

alsactl store

that should make your volume level stick across reboots

phil

 

yeah post your screenshots, as you have certainly done something wrong with your fedora install if the settings are all the same as mine and there is still no sound, as the distro/apps/code are already proven good on this hardware so i'd really like to now what's up with your install :?

i tried sidux and i simply wasn't impressed, slower to boot and slower in actual use than fedora xfce, though i will say that it is one of the better debian/ubuntu spinoffs. my next distro tryout (well apart from the F11 stuff i'm already doing, which you may want to try out as an up to date F11 beta is fully functional on an aoa with no hacks or workarounds ) is going to be crunchbang #! which is another ubuntu spinoff, with what i have read it looks promising , but i'm learning to take what i read about certain distro's on the one with a pinch of salt lol

phil

 

Screenshots:

Desktop and Volume Control:
http://www.sutterers.com/aao-audio/desktop-and-volumecontrol.png

Volume Control Properties:
http://www.sutterers.com/aao-audio/volume-control-properties.png

Gnome Sound Properties:
http://www.sutterers.com/aao-audio/gnome-sound-properties.png

Mixer Settings:
http://www.sutterers.com/aao-audio/mixersettings.png

I haven't tried installing alsa utilities...

Platform is an A110, 8GB SSD, 512MB RAM
Bios is 3309.
I installed from the XFCE version of Fedora 10, and have tried sound both before and after installing Fedora updates.
I did my installation exactly as in these steps:
http://jorge.fbarr.net/2008/11/10/fedora-10-on-the-acer-aspire-one/

Sidux takes a little longer to boot (about another 10 seconds) but just seems more responsive than Fedora or even Linpus for that matter. The Sidux repositories also have a few more of the applications I would like to have (particularly ham radio applications). But being unstable brings risks... the dist-upgrade I ran last night broke the xfce desktop. I'd like to make Fedora 10 work.

I am looking forward to Fedora 11...

Steve

Let me know what other info you might need.

 

BTW, I'm using macles* aa1backup utility to make images at each stage (and for each distro that I try), so it's pretty easy for me to change things around or back up to a previous version.

 

everything looks ok there :? ok first run

Code:

su -c 'yum -y install alsa-utils pavucontrol'

then when that is finished run

Code:

alsamixer -c 0

then press tab twice to move along to 'all' and make sure 'master' and 'pcm' are at 100%, in fact turn all output channels you see to 100%, then run your sound app and have the song playing then while it's playing run

Code:

pavucontrol

and look at the output tab and make sure that hda intel is chosen, then look at the playback tab, in the drop down box choose 'show all streams' and see if you audio app is showing any output. after all that if your sound still isn't working run

Code:

su -c 'yum erase pulseaudio padevchooser pavucontrol pavumeter'

and get rid of pulseaudio all together and go back to using alsa directly too see if your sound works then.

then let me know how you get on

yeah macles has done a lot for the aspire one community, i'm pretty sure he works for/knows someone who works for acer as he always has the new bios files before they are on any of the acer public servers, as well as having the service manuals etc

phil

 

I pulled my hair out on this....

Give this a shot..

Run "xfce4-mixer" from a term and un-mute all of your devices and bump up the volume, especially PCM and front.

Then cheer for such an easy fix...The taskbar mixer and the one in the multimedia menu do not appear to do anything in my build. I was ready to move to Debian...

 

One more thing, if the pertinent sliders are not visible go File->Options to select them....Close and reissue "xcfe4-mixer".

 

Just an update removing the volume console from your task bar and adding a new one seems to add one that is actually functional, ie with persistance.