Re: problems with sound
On Sun, 5 Dec 2010 20:21:11 -0300
Kjetil brinchmann Halvorsen <kjetil1001@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hola!
>
> This is debian squeeze on amd64.
>
> Today, sound stopped functioning on my system! Such problems often
> atre solved by a reboot,
> but today that did'nt help.
>
> Any ideas?
>
Yes, I'm afraid you'll have to learn how it works. I do this every few
years. Sound in Linux is capricious.
Try the volume control first, probably in alsamixer if you don't have
a GUI. Sometimes that gets reset to zero on one or more channels. Run
speaker-test for some sample sound if you don't have an mp3 easily to
hand.
Most of the trouble I have is because my machines have more than one
sound card, and every year or so an update causes the
detection process to switch the numbering. That's the next thing to
look at if you have a separate or USB sound card *and* motherboard
sound.
Assuming you're using alsa, look at /proc/asound/cards to confirm your
sound card(s) is present (look into detection and driver modules if it
isn't), then try /etc/asound.conf, which may contain a pointer to
another file. The actual asound.conf file will contain a list of
defaults, make sure the card and device numbers are set to the one you
expect. Change it here if it's showing the wrong number.
Beyond that I can't help, as I don't use sound professionally and I
don't get trouble often enough to be familiar with the whole system. I
do have memories of long Google searches to track down details of
arcane asound.conf tweaks, mostly guesses from people who knew no more
than I did. But that was some years ago, and it's probably different
now.
--
Joe
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