I’m using OpenSUSE 13.1, KDE 4.11, my system is up to date.
I installed alsa-firmware and pavucontrol. I added user to “audio” group. There’s no sound from my laptop speaker. But when I plug headphone in, there’s sound from headphone.
Have you checked YaST > Hardware > Sound?
In the lower right corner is something like Other > Volume (freestyle-translation, my interface is german).
Maybe your speaker volume is just set mute.
Yes, that is what I meant.
The intention was to check for easiest solutions first.
Unfortunately I’m no *-Guru and have no clever suggestions when the obvious ones fail.
Referring to my properly working laptop I expected a volume slider for your internal speakers (and a setting >0 for headphones).
Maybe this is another symptom giving clues to the brainiacs.