My OpenSuse Box works perfect except a minor sound error.
When I loggin to the system the sound works perfect, but If the system stays idle for some time, the sound mutes it self. To correct this problem I have to logout and login.
Maybe your sound has simply been seized by the last device you were using?
What is your “test” / “criteria” for saying your sound is not working? If you are using a multimedia player as part of that test, what output audio module does it have selected?
You could check to see if some other device has seized the audio and is not letting go. That is possible by typing in a konsole or terminal:
lsof /dev/dsp* /dev/audio* /dev/mixer* /dev/snd/*
Typically, one should run that when their sound works ok, with sound playing and without sound playing in order to get a flavour as to what it looks like with their hardare and functional sound configuration. Once that baseline is established, then also run that when one has a sound problem. Then compare the outputs.
Did you check your mixer to see if there was a setting that was muted there?
Also, if indeed your mixer is set correctly and your volume settings ok, and still no sound/volume, a quicker approach (than logging in and out) is to simply restart alsa with:
su -c ‘rcalsasound restart’
and then restart your mixer and test your sound
Just a little something you may or may not already know.
I spent countless hours trying to figure out a couple of issues with sound that could have been easily explained.
I’m a Linux noob as well (a few months now).
In Windows XP if you have surround sound speakers the system automatically routs the sound out even though mp3s are actually in stereo. Linux does not. So only the front two speakers worked.
By default OpenSuse will only allow one application to use sound at a time. So if you were playing some music earlier and then went on the net without turning it off you would get no sound on the net. Keep in mind that some programs (like Amarok) might just minimize when you hit the close button. So make sure it’s really closed.