Hi, I am new to this. my son has installed Ubuntu 10.04 on his computer and is very happy with it and has suggested that I should try it myself on one of my computers. So I borrowed a disc from him and ran Ubuntu from the DVD ROM drive and ran it to try it, that is I didn't install it. it booted up okay to the user interface screen and although slow, everything seems to work except for sound, I have no sound whatsoever on the computer although it has sound when I switch back to Windows. I tried to play an mp3 music disc an also downloaded an mp3 file from the net to see if that would work but all it did was give me some swirling graphics while the music was suppose to be playing but still no sound. nothing! No sound, nothing. I have played around with it for a couple of days and still no success. I understand that some plugins have to be installed to make the sound work but the plugins the search downloaded and installed for me, did nothing other than the swirling graphics in the music player but no sound.
Ihave installed some software that the computer searched for when I tried to play the CD and it found and installed several little software packages but still no luck.

I have tried to get some advice from the net via google and I can't find anyone who can bring himself down to my level and explain simply what might be wrong, they just go off in a load of technical jargon that must give them some ego trip trying to make themselves appear smart cos I can't understand a word they are saying.

Is there someone who can tell me in a simple way what to do to get sound working or is it not possible. I just hope that someone here has the ability to explain it to me in terms I can understand.

I tried to install the Kpackage kit but it came up with an error while trying to download the files.

Thanks in advance guys. I hope I have made it clear as to what I am having trouble with.

Have you checked the mixer settings? The sound may just be muted or have the wrong hardware device selected for output. Go to System--> Preferences--> Sound. Leave something playing while you check the settings.

Hi Munruben,
Assuming you were running Ubuntu (and not Kubuntu) from a live CD (not installed but running off the CD or DVD) then your Desktop Environment is called Gnome. This is useful information (if it's correct).
No need to bother with Kpackage. This is a package for the KDE Desktop Environment but you are using Gnome as I said above.

One simple question: When you look around your desktop do you see an icon for a mixer anywhere? It will look something like a speaker. This will mean that your sound system was (probably) installed correctly and you'll be able to fix it easily.
cheers,
jdk

I have tried to adjust sound settings by clicking on the speaker icon but nothing seems to respond when I click on any of the tabs in the set up box such as hardware, input etc etc. if thats what you mean by mixer settings. It just freezes at the point where I put a disc in the player and try to adjust anything. maybe its a bad copy of Ubuntu I got no idea. I was under the impression that this sort of thing just doesn't happen with Ubuntu. I seem to be having more problems with it than windows. But I will stick to it and see if the problem can be resolved. maybe i should get another disc and try that.

Hi, as stated above I tried to see what I could do through the "mixeer" but no luck. The whole thing seems to go so slow its unreal, takes a few minutes for any command to be executed and still no audio. It connects to the internet okay but no audio. Any suggestions are welcome.

What kind of speakers do you have. On my ubuntu 9.04 Every time I reinstall ubuntu for some reason I always have to delete of of the hidden folders to get my sound to work. I use a logitech head set.

That's quite possible.This sort of thing happens with all operating systems from time to time.This is a response bourne out of frustration That's the spirit.

To get back on track. Ubuntu is not the magic bullet it is sometimes hailed to be. We could go on trying to diagnose the problem until it is resolved or you can try to get up and running with the least amount of hassle by trying another distro. There are plenty of other newbie-friendly distros out there. If you want to stick with the Ubuntu look and feel, try Linux Mint.

When burning your distro to disc, try to burn at the slowest possible speed.

If the option to check media is available when booting off the disc. Use that to check all is well with the burn.

Do you have the driver for the sound card installed, Munruben? If not, check the HCL to make sure they're available.

Kudos for trying Linux.

Just as a side note, as long as you are running from a Live CD/DVD, the computer is going to run slower, sometimes much slower, than it would if you were running from the hard drive. Any command you give will require that the CD/DVD drive seek the media for a response.

Furthermore, attempting to install anything is more or less pointless, since the CD/DVD will be write only, so you will only be installing the the RAMdisk. It probably doesn't have the space to accommodate an installation of any size.

I second the suggestions to try some other Live CDs. It sounds to me like a driver issue.

What type of sound card do you have?

Okay, I have got another disc and tried to run it again on the other computer, same results, so I am now running it on this computer. I still can't play MP3 music but I have found out that the sound card is working okay because I can play WAV sound files okay. I tried to play a utube video and I get a message that I need a plugin to play utube videos, How can I do that? get a plugin I mean. I went on a website that had MP3 music and tried to play the music but message came up that I needed a codec to play it and offered to search for the necessary codec but message came back that none was available, why is that? I feel I am getting closer to a resolution to my original posting but still haven't solved it yet. Oh and by the way, I only have one DVD/Cd burner in this compute so guess it is not possible to play a music CD from the drive seeing as I have the Ubuntu disc in the drive. So guess at this stage, the progress is that we have a sound card that is obviously working in Ubuntu. Any suggestions or advice will be welcome. Thanks guys.

visit this link http://www.ubuntugeek.com/install-mp...ucid-lynx-html

I should have clicked straight away. Ubuntu doesn't play non-free stuff out of the box.

Here's another helpful resource: Perfectbuntu

i have the same problem with fedora on my laptop.

op: does it work with headfones ?

Most youtubes are Adobe Flash. You would need the Adobe Flash plugin for Linux.

Or you could install the flashplugin-installer available via the Synaptic Package Manager. System--> Administration.