sound troubles

[Tom_ZeCat]

Okay, so I got Ubuntu running on the PC I talked about in the "Clunker Junker" threads. The end result for this computer is to be used as an MP3 player hooked up to my entertainment center.

Ubuntu installed nicely -- cool. I put a couple MP3s on the computer and tried double clicking on them to play them. Didn't work. Ubuntu complained about not having the right codec and asked if I wanted to intall the codec. I let it. It installed successfully -- cool.

Unfortunately, when I double clicked on the MP3, it played, but the sound quality was poor. It made a lot of scratchy and popping noises. I played the same MP3 on my Windows XP machine and it played fine. No scratches or pops, and the sound quality was good.

Since this PC is to be a juke box, it's ability to play MP3s with quality sound is paramount. Where do I go from here? Do I uninstall that codec and try to find a better one? Or do I find PCI-based sound card that's known to be compatible with Linux?

[elija]

This is a familiar problem. It drove me mad with LinuxMint too. The solution was surprisingly simple.

Open your sound mixer and turn down the Line level until the weirdness stops.

[i92guboj]

This is a familiar problem. It drove me mad with LinuxMint too. The solution was surprisingly simple.

Open your sound mixer and turn down the Line level until the weirdness stops.

Yep. Check your mixer (for example, run alsamixer on a terminal), and check that all the levels are muted or set to 0. That is, all except the Master channel and the PCM channel.

If you still have problems, try to see if you can reproduce the same problem with another media player on linux. Finally, if you still have the same problem, let us know what sound chip do you have. A good way to see that is by using "sudo lspci" on a terminal, then paste the output here.

[Manchunian]

Same thing happened to me too - same solution. For an alternative player, and I know I've already said this, try VLC. It might not satisfy you for your jukebox requirements, but it has the advantage of being very simple and complete with all the codecs you will need. If it doesn't work with this, and the adjustments described above, then it's a hardware issue for sure.