[SOLVED] No sound in Jaunty, had it in Intrepid

[linduxed]

I installed Jaunty a couple of days ago and while I enjoy improvements on many fronts, I can't get my sound to work.

I have the problematic ALC889 card. In Intrepid I needed to do use the following script to manually update to alsa-1.0.19 for my sound to work properly (I could use .18 and utilise tools like hda-verb for subpar sound from two channels but that's all).
In Jaunty this has no effect, which I find mighty strange because when I install .19 with the script, sound utilities like the pulse-audio mixer clearly show bars jumping up and down, so there has to be some activity (no sound though).

I've checked all possible places, nothing is muted.

[linduxed]

I just tried another method I read about, Luke Yelavich's ALSA PPA.

I installed the PPA and then ran an update followed by an upgrade.
After reboot I'm still out of sound. I think I'm back where I was when I installed .19 with the script.

[linduxed]

I just tried restarting alsasound (now ive used the PPA method for installing) and I got the following output:

linduxed@lawliet:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/alsasound restart
[sudo] password for linduxed: 
Shutting down sound driver: ERROR: Module snd_hda_codec_nvhdmi is in use
ERROR: Module snd_hda_codec_realtek is in use
ERROR: Module snd_hda_codec is in use by snd_hda_codec_nvhdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek
ERROR: Module snd_hwdep is in use by snd_hda_codec
ERROR: Module snd_pcm is in use by snd_hda_codec
ERROR: Module snd_timer is in use by snd_pcm
ERROR: Module snd is in use by snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer
done
ALSA driver is already running.

Is it just me or should there be less modules printed out?

After doing it again I got the following:

linduxed@lawliet:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/alsasound restart
Shutting down sound driver: /usr/sbin/alsactl: save_state:1502: No soundcards found...
done

Oh and the first restarting didn't help at all.

[linduxed]

While the script obviously just overwrites the everything that has to do with ALSA, I just noticed that the PPA method does not.
Kinda obvious in a way since the packages installed were called stuff like "lib32asound2" instead of "alsa-base" and such. It hit me that there might be something important about the fact that all the packages coming from official sources (alsa-base, alsa-utils, etc...) are still at 1.0.18.dfsg-1ubuntu8.

I also tried adding the following to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf :

options snd-hda-intel model=acer-aspire

But that didn't help at all.

[linduxed]

An important piece of info that I forgot to mention is that I don't get any sound in GDM either. I assume that in Jaunty there's still some sound when the login screen pops up, and sound's missing too.

[linduxed]

I finally found the solution to my problem.
Apparently the .18 driver provided in Jaunty is capable of give close to full functionality, it's a matter of adding two lines of text into a config file.

First open up /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base with preferred editor. In my case it's vim so it would look like the following:

sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

Add this to the end of the file:

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=auto

After this a reboot was all I needed to get the sound working. I had to unmute and move some sliders in alsamixer but that was it.

I found the fix in the following bug report in Launchpad. The relevant posts are found on the very bottom, written by "pedja_portugalac".
The first solution he offers is the one I outlined here and used, the other one involves downloading the driver from Realtek's page instead of using any of the mentioned methods in this thread (official repos, .19-script, PPA).
The difference between the two is that the one I outlined above is first and foremost a lot simpler, but it also gives only 3 channels (right, left and centre). This was tested with a surround sound testing audio file.
According to "pedja_portugalac" the Realtek-driver-method provides him with the full 5.1 (as stated in the bug report thread), something I have not tried and cannot confirm. Some day maybe, now I'm well satisfied with the sound I've got.

[linduxed]

I compiled a quite thorough guide on my blog to have the Sound on Jaunty with Aspire 8930g issue covered.