Hello forum members,
Swithced over to OpenSuse 11.1 Gnome.
But now I don’t have sound.
Sound used to work fine on XFCE and KDE.
How can I get the sound back.
Pulse audio is the standard sound regulator
Robbie-san
What is your criteria for determining that sound does not work ?
A simple test to see if your sound works, is to open a konsole or xterm, and type (it may be easier to copy and paste this into your konsole/xterm):
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 75%. Note the test for surround sound is different.
If that test yields errors, try instead this more simple test:speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twavIf there is no sound from either test when using a konsole (or xterm) as a regular user, try as user root. ie type “su” (no quotes, and enter root password when prompted) and then try the test line. If you get sound with root permissions, but you got no sound as a regular user, then you probably have a permissions problem.
Ideally, you should hear a lady’s voice saying ‘FRONT RIGHT’,‘FRONT LEFT’ five times.
Please note also, that its not uncommon for only 1 of those two speaker tests to work. As long as you have one working, then your basic sound is established.
Do you get basic sound with either of those?
Don’t forget to go to YaST > Hardware > Sound > Other > Volume and move your volume settings for PCM and Master volume to 95% or so. Then go to your mixer and move up your PCM and Master volume settings there to 95% or so. Once you have basic sound, back off those levels to a lower more acceptable level to reduce distortion.
I don’t get sound either since I’ve upgraded to OpenSUSE 11.1 and KDE 4.1.3. Updating to KDE 4.2.1 didn’t help. The best result is to hear sometimes sound when logging in or out from the desktop. The above test commands result in
> speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twav
speaker-test 1.0.18
Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1008:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
Playback open error: -16,Das Gerät oder die Ressource ist belegt
Not sure how the correct translation of the German output is, but it says that the device or resource is in use already (or busy?). I get this output even being root. Also when the desktop locks after inactivity I see a window telling me (also translation from German):
Phonon: The audio device “HDA Intel (AL C880 Analog)” doesn’t work. It is switched to “HDA Intel (AL C880 Digital)” instead.
What configuration did you have when you obtained the log in / out message ?
Was this before, or after, you started changing your desktop version.
Did you try both speaker-tests? Or just the one ?
Based on your description of the symptoms, I can not tell if your problem is :
- a badly misconfigured mixer, or
- mis-configured applications (ie missing codecs, or wrong output audio mode selected), or
- driver problem (such as old driver not compatible with new kernel
Please try working your way through the openSUSE audio troubleshooting guide: SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE
If you have no success with the audio troubleshooting guide, then I will need more information if I am to make a recommendation … So can you provide more very detailed information so a good recommendation can be given? You can do that, with your laptop connected to the internet, by opening a gnome-terminal or a kde konsole and typing:
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh
that will run a diagnostic script and post the output to a web site on the Internet. It will give you the URL of the web site. Please post that URL here. It may be that you need to run that script with root permissions. Please note that I need that output to understand better your PC’s configuration.
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 | grep alsa
rpm -qa | grep pulse
rpm -q libasound2
uname -a
cat /etc/modprobe.d/soundI also need that output. Hopefully with that I can make a good recommendation. Note I am on vacation with only limited internet access, so my replies my be late and spotty.
Sorry for the delay but I wanted to make sure that things do work now properly. I followed the wiki advice until the alsaconf command which managed to detect the correct driver. It seems that the installation program failed to do so. Thanks for your help!
Please read my post, in terms of the advice I gave you to follow if the wiki audio troubleshooting guide does not work for you.
In case, it wasn’t clear, the troubleshooting guide worked for me. 
Ahh … my mistake.
Congratulations on sorting your sound problem !