No sound from my Linux Mint install, output is set to dummy speakers

[terry274]

After you install alsa-utils, do:
aplay -l
That is a lowercase L, not an I

 

[OVERKILL]

After you install alsa-utils, do:
aplay -l
That is a lowercase L, not an I

This.

 

[ka9mnx]

I have tried ka9's suggestion
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

One more thing that's developed, the keyboard is unstable. It keeps on repeating a few times the character I just pressed briefly, or does nothing at other times whenever I press any key. No change if I use another, good keyboard.

I think I'm giving up on this Linux Mint thing.

Sounds, to me, more like a hardware problem.

I played around with Red Hat years ago before it became commercial and Fedora spun off as a free version. Red Hat, and Fedora was a clunky OS and I didn't use it very long. Could be it's not well maintained (voluntarily supported by Red Hat employees).

I would try something more mainstream like Ubuntu (Debian is my first choice). Debian is slow to update but rock solid.

I just replaced an old version (no longer supported) of Mint on our Lenovo laptops (VERY old) with Debian 12. YouTube would play audio but no video. After days of searching for a fix finally landed on the YouTube help site. The fix? Disable hardware acceleration and all is good now

Don't give up! You will be happy in the end!

 

[Brons2]

Sounds, to me, more like a hardware problem.

I played around with Red Hat years ago before it became commercial and Fedora spun off as a free version. Red Hat, and Fedora was a clunky OS and I didn't use it very long. Could be it's not well maintained (voluntarily supported by Red Hat employees).

I would try something more mainstream like Ubuntu (Debian is my first choice). Debian is slow to update but rock solid.

I just replaced an old version (no longer supported) of Mint on our Lenovo laptops (VERY old) with Debian 12. YouTube would play audio but no video. After days of searching for a fix finally landed on the YouTube help site. The fix? Disable hardware acceleration and all is good now

Don't give up! You will be happy in the end!

More mainstream than LM? Da <expletive> you talking about? LinuxMint is one of the most popular distributions out there and the main stem is based on Ubuntu, just with a better UI than Ubuntu. In fact if Distrowatch is to be believed, LM is MORE POPULAR than Ubuntu for the last 12, 6, 3, and 1 months. https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity

In fact I'm using it to type this post now, and my audio works fine, without disabling hardware acceleration. If you had a really old, unsupported version of LM, it's your fault for not upgrading in a reasonable time period.

 

[ka9mnx]

More mainstream than LM? Da <expletive> you talking about? LinuxMint is one of the most popular distributions out there and the main stem is based on Ubuntu, just with a better UI than Ubuntu. In fact if Distrowatch is to be believed, LM is MORE POPULAR than Ubuntu for the last 12, 6, 3, and 1 months. https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularithttps://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity

In fact I'm using it to type this post now, and my audio works fine, without disabling hardware acceleration. If you had a really old, unsupported version of LM, it's your fault for not upgrading in a reasonable time period.

Yes LM is, and has been, very popular. More polished and geared towards converted Window$ users. Also, Ubuntu is based on Debian (like most everything). LM is a nice distro and I used it for a while. Turned out LM was too bloated for our use.

When I said mainstream, I was referring to moving away from Fedora. Please read post's more carefully.

The laptops are very old and rarely used anymore. The other day I decided to fire them up and charge the batteries and check for updates. The audio worked fine on the old version of LM, but not the latest LM.

I decided to install the latest Debian when I found out our LM was outdated. And because everything else we have is using Debian.

Everything is working fine so back they go into the closet to collect more dust...

 

[berniedd]

try:
sudo apt-get install alsa-utils

Ok, alsa-utils is installled.

Running aplay -l, i get

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 0: ALC662 rev1 Analog [ALC662 rev1 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

 

[andrew_j]

Ugh why I dreaded Linux distros for desktop usage but they definitely cleanup their act of making it easier to install as time progressed.

I’d just pick another distro till enough features work on old machine. Chasing drivers is brutal.

 

[terry274]

@berniedd type alsamixer and make sure the volume is turned up and not muted on whatever shows up. In the top right of your alsamixer screen will be a menu, in the top left will be information about the selected device.

 

[OVERKILL]

Ok, alsa-utils is installled.

Running aplay -l, i get

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 0: ALC662 rev1 Analog [ALC662 rev1 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Excellent! So that's showing the HDMI audio on your graphics card as well as your integrated audio (ALC662). So both are detected. Follow the instructions @terry274 provided and you should be able to get sound.

 

[berniedd]

After fiddling around with the various controls in alsamixer and two reboots,, i now have sound!! The sound is now ported to line out audio! thanks, all!

 

[berniedd]

The sound is good, no hiccups. I noticed 2 days ago intermittent very soft short fizzing sounds from the power cord end that goes to the computer power supply. I replaced that power cord 10 minutes ago, and now the keyboard stuttering is totally gone. Very strange indeed.

 

[Merek]

I see HDMI listed, was that the port it was trying to output the sound? if so should be able to just change which port it's sending the audio out but at least it's working now for you.

 

[berniedd]

I see HDMI listed, was that the port it was trying to output the sound? if so should be able to just change which port it's sending the audio out but at least it's working now for you.

Sorry, I still don't know what port the sound initially was outputted to, all I saw was the sole choice of the Dummy Speakers selected after installing Linux Mint 19.2, which was still the only choice selected after changing over to 21.3. There were no other choices available.

inxi-Fxz and aplay -l commands as in earlier posts showed the sound driver was installed.

To wit,

Device-1: AMD Trinity HDMI Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
bus ID: 00:01.1
Device-2: AMD FCH Azalia vendor: Biostar Microtech Intl Corp
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:14.2
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-213-generic

- and -

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
Device-1: AMD Trinity HDMI Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
bus ID: 00:01.1
Device-2: AMD FCH Azalia vendor: Biostar Microtech Intl Corp
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:14.2
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-213-generic