No Sound on Debian Etch

eric_marsh · 02-08-2007, 07:21 PM

I've been trying to get my system play movies, CDs and so forth but so far have been unable to get any sound. I'm using KDE and when it comes up I hear the welcome sound but after that nothing. I can get the system beep to work, though it comes from the internal speaker, but less success with the system notifications. Sometimes I will get part of one when I play it but just a fraction of a second.

Anyone have any suggestions?

pda_h4x0r · 02-08-2007, 11:49 PM

I've had the same problems with ALSA and KDE. The problem, it seems, is aRts (KDE's sound server). Try removing it, or using a different sound system (i.e. ESD, JACK, etc.)

craigevil · 02-09-2007, 12:45 AM

No need to remove aRts. Try opening the Control Center>Sound System>Hardware>Select the audio device
and set it to ALSA. Then run alsaconf to make sure ALSA is using the correct hardware.

If that doesn't work try setting the time arts sits idle to "Auto-suspend if idle after">I use 60 seconds with no problems.

pda_h4x0r · 02-09-2007, 12:08 PM

I have tried that, and STILL no sound for me. Even re-probing the ALSA modules does not bring sound back up with aRts running.

rickh · 02-09-2007, 12:48 PM

Sound is a very peculiar thing in the sense that newbies have all kinds of problems and it's so easy for experienced users that it's really difficult to figure out what the newbie's issue is.

I use Gnome, but I know that aRts is running because when I use a KDE app, I hear all these garish noises. The System sounds are served up by aRts, but Movies, CDs, atc., need to be handled by Alsa.

In the GUI menues are multimedia setting applications. I think there have been rare occasions when I had to tweak them a little bit, but I have done many Etch installations on many different computers, both laptops and desktops, and very rarely is there any problem at all. The trouble shooting sequence should go like this:

Code:

# lspci | grep audio
# lsmod | grep snd
# aptitude (or apt-get) install alsa-base alsa-utils
# alsaconf

...and start listening.

If nothing shows up on the lspci query, you have hardware problems. If nothing shows up on the lsmod query, you have driver problems. Assuming those are OK, and alsaconf recognized the card, the only thing left is sound mixer problems for which there are quite a few solutions, including alsamixergui.

eric_marsh · 02-10-2007, 07:55 AM

I'm not getting anything on the lspci | grep sound command. However I did just do an lspci and found the following:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)

Looks like a sound device to me. How can I use it?

rickh · 02-10-2007, 09:40 AM

Quote:

I'm not getting anything on the lspci | grep sound

The command in my instruction was lspci | grep audio ... using that your sound card would have returned.

Does lsmod | grep snd return several lines?

eric_marsh · 02-10-2007, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickh

The command in my instruction was lspci | grep audio ... using that your sound card would have returned.

Does lsmod | grep snd return several lines?

Sorry - I meant "grep audio" - I got nothing until I did a lspci | grep -i audio. Then I got the line that I posted above:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)