Hi,
I just installed 11.2 on an old Thinkpad T41 today, just to give it a second life. openSUSE rocks on this elderly laptop! Install was a breeze and everything is working perfectly, EXCEPT…
…no sound at all out of any output, from any source.
Could someone let me know how (or point me to a link that helps) to diagnose this problem? I’m a Linux noob but I checked on the “alsa’s” that were installed through YaST Software Management and could post results, etc.
Thanks in advance.
Reference being new to “Linux”, please take a look at this to remove some of the mystery out of the magic users will be throwing at you:
Concepts - openSUSE
There is an openSUSE audio troubleshooting guide here:
SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE
Note its suggestion for users to try installing alsa-firmware.
Please do NOT use the startup system sound as your criteria for stating sound does not work. Also be certain to check your mixer. Its not uncommon for a mixer setting (master, pcm or speaker) to be muted upon boot. In KDE your mixer is “kmix” (the small speaker in right hand corner). In Gnome your mixer is “alsamixer”.
Note, when testing if you have sound, please copy and paste the following speaker-test into a Gnome terminal or a kde konsole:
speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -l5 -twav
Note Linux is case sensitive, and “D” is not the same as “d”. To stop the above test, while the konsole/xterm has the mouse focus, press <CTRL><C> on the keyboard. Note you should check your mixer settings (kmix if using KDE, and alsamixer if using Gnome) to ensure that PCM and Master Volume are set around 95%. Once you have basic sound established you can back off to lower volume levels. Note the test for surround sound is different.
If that test yields errors (and its not uncommon to get errors there), try instead this more simple test: speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twavYou should hear a female voice saying ‘FRONT LEFT’, ‘FRONT RIGHT’ five times. Its quite common that one of those speaker tests will work and one will NOT work, so don’t be distressed if that is the case. IF that test gives sound, stop now, post that the sound test gives sound, and we will look at other possible causes for your applications not giving you the sound you want (such as missing codecs, using the wrong packaged version … etc … ).
Or alternatively, for testing the simple playback, use aplay program. Prepare a WAV file and simply run like:
aplay -vv somefile.wav
With the option -vv, aplay shows the verbose information of the PCM device, and a VU-peak meter during playing the file.
Try those speaker-tests as both a regular user, and also with root permissions. If you have a headset, try with your headset plugged in, and also with your headset not plugged in (for speakers).
Assuming no sound, can you provide more very detailed information so a good recommendation can be given? You can do that, with your PC connected to the internet, by opening a gnome-terminal or a kde konsole and copy and paste the following into that terminal/konsole
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh
When you run it, it will diagnose your PC’s hardware and software configuration for audio, and it will ask you if you wish to SHARE/UPLOAD the information (select SHARE/UPLOAD) and it will post its output on the Internet/web. And when finished it will give you the URL of the web site where the information is posted. Please post that URL here. JUST the URL.
Also, please copy and paste the following commands one line at a time into a gnome-terminal or a konsole and post here the output: rpm -qa ‘alsa’
rpm -qa ‘pulse’
rpm -q libasound2
uname -a
cat /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf… with that information I may be able to make a detailed recommendation.
Also, do NOT waste too much time on this. Simply post on our forum if you get stumped, and continue to look for help that way.
oldcpu,
Many thanks for the detailed reply and help with the diagnostics.
As it turns out, the problem was simply with the hard (dedicated) audio control buttons on the T41 keyboard – after the install they defaulted to mute. With XP there was an onscreen indicator after these audio controls were toggled, which doesn’t appear now. With this trivial problem solved, the audio is working perfectly from all sources, to both the speakers and headphone jack.
So the install of 11.2 worked seamlessly really. Even though I’m late to the Linux party, I’m thrilled to have Microsoft out of my life. Now I’ll spend the time to go through the openSUSE concepts and the other excellent links, to work my way up to an advanced user.
The support here is excellent and much appreciated. Thanks for your time.
P.S. Since I was playing around with the system info tools you provided, this is the URL for the also-project.org system info report.
Congratulations on sorting this problem. Thankyou for sharing your solution.
Thank you also for sharing the output of the alsa-info.sh diagnostic script. I don’t get to see that many functional setups when those scripts are run, so its nice to see that.