I was looking for a way to kill the ubuntu sounds that play when the computer boots up so that I would not disturb anyone at the library where I get high speed connection.

I could find nothing that made any sense.

The computer has a series of icons showing a speaker 3 different ways one with an X on it. These light up when you run a finger over them but I have found no particular effect from doing so. and the feature seems to be something that Dell did not feel a need to document.

-- Looking under System/administration/Services, I found a pop up message which says "configure which services will be run when the system starts".
-- Clicking on that I saw in the list,"Audio settings management (alsa-utils)"
-- -- Thinking that this might contain a clue to how to shut down the sound that plays during boot up,
-- I unlocked the list of possibilities
-- and clicked the check box to see if more information was forthcoming.
-- I got no informaton,
-- so I clicked the check box which was unchecked at that time,
-- -- still no information!
-- so I unchecked the box.
-- Then I saw that a right click on this would offer to give me the properties if I left clicked the word properties.
-- When I did so, it gave me a list of properties under the headings Runlevel, Status, and Priority.
-- -- Since this was all meaningless garbage to me,
--I closed the box
-- and closed the Services Settings box as well.

I poked around looking for other possibilities but nothing looked like it would be fruitful and I left off the effort for the time being.

Today my computer has NO SOUND WHATSOEVER. I really don't know if the above scenario had anything to do with the loss of sound but since it was the only thing I did under "administration" I think it is the leading candidate, even though I did nothing that explicitly looked like it would change anything.

Dell has provided no useful documentation with this computer and my multiple experiences with their technical support has been a contradictory counterproductive waste of time. Their company deserves to fail for the incompetence and swindling of the public in the way they operate.

The computer has propriatary drivers and the ony way I have found to install them is to reformat and run the install disk they sent with the machine. Which of course wipes out everything I have filed on the machine and requires me to first back up and then reinstall every one of my files.

Can someone please tell me how to figure out what the problem is and get the sound back. If that involves reinstalling some sound drivers, It will be necessary to figure out how to get at them in the dell disk that was sent with the machine as that seems to only offer a way to return the software to factory condition in total as noted above.

You have only the remotest idea how hard it has been for me to keep an incredible barrage of profanity out of this plea for help.



System Specifications:

Computer:........ Dell Studio 1535 laptop
Modem ........... USRobotics usr5837
OS............... Ubuntu 8.04 (hardy heron)
-- Kernel ....... 2.6.24-16 generic
-- Gnome ........ 2.22.1
Processor 0: .... Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T5750 @ 2.00GHz
Processor 1: .... Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T5750 @ 2.00GHz

can you reset and re-detect the sound card ?
install alsa-utils and then as root issue this command

# alsaconf

this will reset and reload all the drivers

make sure after this you incresase the volume (both master and pcm) since alsaconf mutes the volume
after the task.

Well perhaps but as a newbie I would need step by step explanation of what is needed. For instance:

-- Without knowing what alsa-utils is I am a little lost here

From where?
-- Is this something that should already reside on my hard drive or an installation CD that I theoretically have, or can it only be downloaded from the internet (I only have dial up 99% of the time) ?
-- Is installation to be done from terminal mode or with a package manager or otherwise?
-- Does this make sense if my sound card is something that requires a proprietary driver?

Neither "Man" or "info" Tell me anything about this. Will it prompt me for additional input or is it something that takes care of everything on its own.

Is there something diagnostic I should try first before I go trying to change things?

With respect to my "step by step explanation" comment, It would help greatly if step by step instructions included a brief comment as to what the instruction was actually going to do. Otherwise simply trying to follow steps explicitly is about equivalent to casting a spell or concocting a potion and tales of witch craft are rife with stories about what happens if one little step isn't quite right.

# apt-get install alsa-utils
...
# alsaconf
---> this is dialog based text interface. Just press ok for defaults
# alsamixer
---> this is again a dialog based text interface. Press UP,DOWN keys to increase the volume (while playing some
music on the machine from mplayer or some player which you like)

and do these all commands as root ... after logging as root in the console
OR
do a su - in a terminal in GUI and issue a root password.