Need help troubleshooting ALSA in Debian please!
 

Hey guys, I've installed a minimal Debian system from netinstall, then installed gnome-core.

I have installed alsa-base, alsa-mixer and other alsa tools, but cannot get any sound. Trying to change volume gives me a "no device detected" or similar.

Trying to run alsamixer gives me "cannot open mixer: No such file or directory" both as user and root

My user is already added to 'audio' group

Speakers are all plugged in/turned up

Somehow, I don't think it is detecting my audio device

Output of lspci (in regards to audio) is as follows

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device 1e20 (rev 04)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device a002
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 3
Memory at f6110000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [60] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
Capabilities: [130] Root Complex Link

01:00.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation GF104 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
Subsystem: ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. Device 2166
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 10
Memory at f6080000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

Any help is greatly appreciated

What does '/sbin/lsmod | grep snd' show?

Gives no output

Since you have done a minimal install, I would guess you have not installed alsa, and the sound drivers. I think the driver snd-hda-intel.ko would be the correct driver. You will also need soundcore and snd loaded.

Try a 'locate snd-hda-intel.ko' to see if you have the driver. If not, you will have to find it in the deb packages and install it. That is a common driver, so it should be in a .deb package. I believe sound and snd are also needed.

'locate snd-hda-intel.ko'

gives

'locate: can not stat () `/var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db': No such file or directory'

I can't find snd-hda-intel.ko for my kernel. I'm using Squeeze with 2.6.32-5-amd64

That driver should be in the repos. Look there first. I don't run debain, so I can not tell you what the package will be called.

Unfortunately, the snd-hda-intel.ko package is not in the repos. In all fairness, I don't even know what I'm looking for.

Any other ideas?

Cheers

Ah, here's an update...

I used 'sudo updatedb'

Then I used 'locate snd-hda-intel.ko' which returned '/lib/modules/2.6.32-5-amd64/kernel/sound/pci/hda/snd-hda-intel.ko'

So it appears I have this file. What next?

As root, three commands should load it.

1. 'modprobe soundcore'

2. 'modprobe snd'

3. 'modprobe snd-hda-intel'

All commands without the quotes, just what is between them. You should get no feedback. In this case, no news is good news. If everything loads, then bring up a mixer, make sure nothing is muted, turn up the sound and see if it works.

If anything fails, copy and paste the errors.

I ran

'modprobe soundcore'

'modprobe snd'

'modprobe snd-hda-intel'

as root. I received no error messages.

Running alsamixer returns 'cannot open mixer: No such file or directory'

It appears you do not have alsamixer installed. Install it, or any other mixer will do.

I would guess alsamixer is part of asla-utils. You should have sound now.