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Where is my sound in Multimedia Sparky 5?

Started by Dali Pascual, August 24, 2018, 11:32:09 PM

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Dali Pascual

I have the latest 4.* GameOver version of Sparky on my Dell 051 desktop.  It runs great and I have never had a problem with Sparky OS.

So I was rather excited to download and try the latest 5.* GameOver version.  No problem again. 

But what is this ?!!  I discovered that Sparky had a Multimedia Version available as well in the v5.* build.  As a musician and broadcast production person I had to download this and give it a shot.  Installation appeared to be fool-proof as usual.  But here's a rather bizarre outcome.  On the very same computer that the other Sparky systems had been installed on,  Sparky could not or did not install drivers for my audio card with the Sparky Multimedia OS. 

I am wondering if this is a bug,  and if there is some way to fix this problem.  Clearly not having sound on a Multimedia Sparky OS does not seem like an optimal state of affairs.

paxmark1

Output of lspci (or inxi) for sound card helps. 

Any luck with alsamixer (on the command line)?  F6 toggles between sound cards (if plural) and between HDMI and PCH. 

Also on command line - "pacmd list-sinks"  also gives out some very basic info about what pulseaudo is using or can use.    Run either as a regular or non-priveledged user.


Search forum for "More info easier via inxi"    If requested -  no inxi, no help for you by  me.

Dali Pascual

Hmmm.  I sort of understand your answer and will look around to see if I can use your advise.
The only thing that had come to mind was a possible manual install of audio drivers,  definitely a task for which I have no idea of what to do as Linux has never had this problem for me in the past.
As far as I am presently knowledgeable,  the installation of the latest multimedia sparky edition doesn't even seem to think there was anything available to install drivers to for sound.... Nevertheless I did try a lot of switching around (rather hopelessly).  All software devices appear to have been automatically set pointing to the 'null' audio device I would assume for this same reason.  Why one version of sparky linux would not acknowledge that I have a sound device at all (especially being the multimedia version) has me thinking that the gods are laughing (into my null device) out there somewhere.
I did leave off the fact that I installed the rolling update version which I suppose is an important bit of information.
Also if it matters,  the sound device was by Intel on a Dell 051 desktop.
Thank you for your time... Sparky is a great system.

Dali Pascual

Ah... Having tried your suggestions coming up with the same results,  I had the brainstorm to try running the live install of Sparky 5.3 Multimedia again to see if audio would be present.  It was.  Live the software had identified and was using my soundcard.  So I thought to try to reinstall the very same system from the same disc to the same computer again.
And wa-laaa!  This time my soundcard was found and identified and everything appears to be OK.  I don't know why,  but why should I complain?

There is one bug which I encountered during the installation.  The installation screen was black for the duration of the install. I chose to use the simple install this time as well.  Since I could see that the CD was being accessed I did not worry about the black install screen.  also reassuring to me was that the screensaver commenced to run after a certain amount of time during the installation as appears to be quite normal for default Sparky settings.  I came back a little later and found the installed completed screen and rebooted to a new Sparky system with sound.  So I suppose that you can close this case as perhaps not debunked,  but as no longer a problem for me.
Thanks for your help and I guess that I have soilved my own problem again.
Dali Pascual. :)

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