Thanks, Rickkkk! I am happy to report that, albeit somewhat mysteriously, but I just might have done something right, the installation has worked, I am able to boot up, and all is - for now, at any rate - well.

But I have also sent off for an introductory text on Linux, so that I feel less ignorant next time. Because, of course, there will be a next time. And a next...

Good news ! You've got the right attitude, Alok. Linux is more of a DIY type of experience than some other OSes, but that's also one of it's principle attractions, in my opinion.

Reading up is definitely a good idea, and if the material is well-written and you're legitimately interested, it can be fun as well.

Don't hesitate to pop back here anytime.

Cheers !

Hello people!

I'm back sooner than I expected. As I wrote in my last post, everything seemed to work for a bit - but I didn't know quite what I had done wrong - and then, unbeknownst to myself, done right. However, the situation now is that with the upgraded LM 18.2, with the latest pulseaudio and all, although the bluetooth speaker does get connected - there's no sound emanating from it. And further, even more mysteriously, there is no sound emanating from the netbook either! The volume control screen shows that there is sound being produced - i.e. the output devices button shows that there is something happening. But nothing coming from the speakers. I've checked the mute buttons, and they seem to be unchecked.

Any ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks @Rickkkk! The DIY part is what I like too - but only when I can "do", so to speak. I am back with something that looks like the original problem - not quite square one, but pretty much square two or three i.e. Bluetooth speaker does connect, but emits no sound. And further, as I wrote in my last post, now even the netbook speaker - pathetic at the best of times - has gone silent!

Cheers!

*grin* ... Ah the joys of technology ...

OK - Alok, you say you checked the mute "buttons" .. How did you do this ? In some GUI applet or via alsamixer on the command line ? I recommend checking out via alsamixer to make sure all your output channels are unmuted as required.

The second thing I would check is the settings in pulseaudio, using pavucontrol. Make sure the appropriate output devices are unmuted and that the volume sliders are at normal levels.

The third thing I would recheck is that you have the pulseaudio-bluetooth module installed. The presence or not of this module should NOT be affecting output via your netbook speaker, but let's cover that base anyway.

... Let's start there ... :-)

Ready to start!

I re-ran the install pulseaudio-bluetooth-module command - and got the message that I had the latest versions.

I checked the settings in pulseaudio - in the GUI - is that "pavucontrol"?

How can I do the alsamixer thing you advise from the command line - i.e. what is the command I run?

Thanks!

Hi Alok,

For alsamixer:

... ;-)

If it isn't available, you probably just need the alsa-utils package.

Let us know !

... off topic ... Are you an Arcade Fire fan ?

I have the alsamixer v1.1.0 screen open before me - but I don't know what to make of it. I notice that one of the bars - which has "Auto-Mute M" under it, is missing altogether. And instead, there is a cryptic "Enabled" where the bar - actually, column - should have been. Significant?

Also, the three "Headphone" columns are blank, as is the one called S/PDIF, and the one called "Loopback Mi".

The columns that have colours showing are Master, Speaker, and PCM. And, on the top left of the screen, there is some info about the card, etc. but it did say that the dB gain for the Master was 0.00.

As you can probably tell from my tone, all of this is gobbledygook to me!

And, by the way, off topic or no, what is Arcade Fire?

Hey Alok,

OK, the important things:

- Make sure you are looking at the "playback" set of sliders in alsamixer (F3 key)(you can also view the audio capture config with F4 ... we don't want that now)

- The important "columns" or sliders, are Master, Headphone, Speaker and PCM.

- If they are muted, you will see the letters "MM" instead of a number between 0 and 100 on the bottom of the slider, and no colour bar will be present in the slider.

- If these channels are muted, you can un-mute by navigating to the slider with your arrow keys and once there, press the "M" key on your keyboard - this toggles mute on and off. Then slide the volume with your up and down arrow keys (around 85-90 is fine).

Let us know how it goes !

PS: Arcade Fire is the name of a band from my home town ... ;-) ... One of their popular songs is "Ready To Start" .. ;-) ... As I said, totally off-topic, but I'm a music fanatic :-) ...

O yes, one further thing - the alsamixer screen has a button at the bottom that says "Auto-Mute", and in the space above that, it says "Enabled". That doesn't seem very smart for a speaker set-up, but I don't know how to disable Auto-Mute.

No, just fiddling around, I managed to disable it! However, the speakers on the netbook still emit no sound!

OK - I'm thinking that, since you had your bluetooth speaker playing successfully at least ONCE, that your Built-In Audio profile in Pulseaudio might be set to "Off". Have you checked that ? You go to the Configuration tab in pavucontrol ...

After I unmuted the headphone buttons, and set the sliders up to 81 , I can get a little sound on the netbook. Even max is pretty minimal. But I should not see if it manages to communicate to the bluetooth speaker.

Still not communicating with the bluetooth speaker.

Are you sure there is nothing plugged into the headphone jack ?

Also check all the settings in pavucontrol ... Sounds like the issue is probably there ... There are a lot of them (settings) and Pulseaudio can be a bit finicky ...