I have installed a new Debian OS to try out the xfce desktop.
My radeon hdmi sound card needs non-free drivers and so I have no sound.
On my previous debian install with gnome desktop, I found a number of changes I had to make to get the sound working.

I have done all this with this new install with xfce.
However, one thing I haven't done yet is to change the System settings-Sound settings to use the hdmi sound card.
The problem is the xfce desktop doesn't have an icon for sound settings under System settings.

This is a bit weird. So I'm wondering if xfce has installed correctly or if it's missing a package so the System sound settings will show up.
Does anyone know what's going on?

Right0click on menu bar, select panel & look for Volume control then add it.

1 members found this post helpful.

This has been helpful.
I've added a sound icon to the 'panel' on the desktop.
It looks like pavucontrol and it is set to the hdmi sound card.
But still no sound.

Rather than trawl through your post history, it would be helpful if you could list the changes you have attempted with this installation.

Are you using pure ALSA or do you have pulseaudio as well?

Also, why did you set up a new system just for XFCE?

If you installed XFCE on your GNOME system, the login screen (GDM) gives you the option to run that if you wish (click on the cog-wheel icon next to the "Sign In" button).

I have finally managed to get the sound working.

The radeon sound card has a particular problem which is solved by adding its name to grub.cfg in /boot/grub. I did that.
It's necessary to ensure the /etc/apt/sources.list has 'contrib' and 'non-free' and then install 'firmware-linux'. I did that.
Change system sound settings on the desktop to radeon hdmi. This is a little difficult on xfce because the sound icon isn't present on system settings. But I was eventually able to add a sound icon to the 'task bar' on the desktop and change the setting to hdmi sound card.
Make sure alsamixer is unmuted and set to hdmi sound card. Which I also did.

But it was only when I installed pavucontrol and set that to hdmi sound card as well that I finally got sound!
So many tweaks!

Congratulations on solving this.

Note that grub.cfg should not be edited by hand. It'll be overwritten by your system the next time you run update-grub. This in turn will be run automatically sometimes (when the system update includes a kernel update).
If it is a kernel parameter you added you can make the change permanent by editing the parameter GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub and then running update-grub (as root).

1 members found this post helpful.

Well that's good to know.
If the sound stops working at any time, I'll know to look in the grub.cfg file first!

Wow, that's cool! Thank you very much!