I tried unlocking the channels via pavucontrol after setting up the 5.1 analog device, but that option always stays locked. Also the annoying popping I hear whenever I click something (it doesn't even have to produce sound, it just pops like speakers are being enabled/disabled. I tried turning timer-based scheduling off (
load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0 ) also tried changing the sample format to 32, and various sample rates. Popping still here.

Edit:
I have a new problem, I installed the 'official realtek' drivers for linux and now I have a dummy output for a soundcard, and no sound.

Edit2: Sorry for not specifying anything, I'm working with Debian 10 KDE, The sound card in question is an Realtek ALC898 on board chipset. The default settings or drivers sounded just awful compared to the Windows I have on another disk. It sounded like channels are mixed up, or incorrectly configured.

Currently there is no sound and only one 'dummy' sound card. Last thing I did to it was ./ configure, make install, ./snddevices as instructed in the driver package from their website. I tried module assistant, modprobe, but none of these had anything relevant to my card. The ./confugre command didn't go exactly smooth as there was some warnings or errors, but the errors outlined in the Installation guide did not show, actually I couldn't find these lines to begin with.

At this point I'm kind of lost, prior to this I tried hdajackretask to try and switch around channels but I wouldn't apply any changed since I'm missing 'fuser'.

I know this might sound weird or unnecessarily complicated but is there a way to get windows programs to interact with hardware like this through wine? I have another sound card(xonar essence stx) with an amplified output for headphones that has very specific drivers that I can't possibly see a solution for since this on board chipset is giving me so much trouble, where its pretty much a standard for sound cards these days....

P.S. How do I get rid of popping sounds? it sounds like the device is being turned on and off whenever any sound is about to play, which is well... troublesome, and if this will mean that my xonar will be turned on and off all the time I might as well drop the whole thing because it will kill the relay on it in no time.

Your question has 256 views, and 0 replies.Let me try!
Read This
How_To_Ask_a_Question

Post again with the details of your soundcard, distro, version, what state it now is in. Post relevant configs.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for help, I updated the OP, or do you think I should just start a new topic? This thing is a mess but I don't want to spam the board.

Basics here, but there is a dummy soundcard driver. I gather it's for software purposes.

Alsa also mutes speakers by default. The guys in alsa evidently imagined a scene like the opening of "Back to the Future (1)" where you suddenly connected your 500W Amp to the speaker on full volume and blew it away. To solve, run to unmute things.

I can't halp you much on kde, because I haven't touched it in years. If you browse to youtube or play a video, how does it sound? https://www.soundsnap.com/tags/left_to_right helps you with sorting left & right channels.

I believe sound is doable in wine, but it's certianly above my pay grade in wine, and look for a document on winehq.org. I don't think wine drives the speakers directly.

not the first time I feel insulted on an internet forum, but I guess it wasn't intended. prior to installation of the driver package from Realtek the devices were called 'built in' for the on board chipset and some 'oxygen' card which didn't seem correct for the Xonar. After the driver 'update' the original modules were either removed or not loaded on boot, again i tried to fix that like I described but to no avail. I will try to reach out to a Debian forum with this but it seems like I will need to go back to Win 7 till ISPs block it like with XP. I don't even need to play games on this thing just play some media, but that proves too much already. cheers