Can't get sound on my laptop

[DGeeez]

I've been working with Ubuntu Intrepid and Jaunty (GNOME) for a few months now, mostly on my desktop. I would really like to use it more on my laptop (anything which you bring to a public wi-fi should be that secure), but the sound is no good. If I get any sound at all, it is uselessly weak, and yes, I did check every single volume-control tool (well, they are all GUIs, but not even the Ubuntu site gurus pointed out a Terminal command for this). The site gurus threw a couple of read-these pages at me, which took me through more idiot checks, disgnostic procedures, and solutions, and still my sound problem did not change. I did everything I was told, including at least one thing which made the problem worse (install PulseAudio), all with no improvement. Finally, there was the ALSA website, where I still found no support for my hardware. My laptop is a Toshiba Satellite - and while I see these at every place where I've seen computers sold, ALSA only lists 4 of the 20+ Toshiba laptop models, not including mine! I am looking for sound support for my Satellite L305-S5933.

I got particularly frustrated, because the Ubuntu website gurus, who may be the actual designers of this OS, can be particularly touchy, and hardly straightforward when their OS fails in the way it has my hardware (the situation isn't helped any by Toshiba's silence concerning it's sound hardware for this laptop - no chipsets named, nor industry standards), which is probably integrated. Ubuntu trumpets so proudly how it's kernel on that single CD carries drivers for every card, chipset, and board ever produced (why does that seem hard to believe), but then I've tried other distros and Ubuntu is the only one which scores nine out of 10, straight out of the box. When the disk fails to make my sound work, they send you to ALSA, which also failed, and apparently does not make itself available for contact. This problem remains unresolved, but it is NOT for me expecting everything to set up as smoothly as Windows! I am NOT afraid of the command line, and am NOT unwilling to get my hands dirty editing files like xorg.conf in the process of installing drivers manually. That said, I did finally correct an error while learning how to manage partitions (I totally nuked Windows), and being unwilling to pay Bill Gates again after having paid for it already, I installed a "cracked" version. There were lots of problems, so I went to the manufacturer's website, downloaded five or six drivers, ran the install on each, and everything was fixed. The point isn't that it was done with technical ease, but that the freakn' drivers were available, and they worked! So, when Ubuntu doesn't want to hear about it, and ALSA is out of touch, is there anywhere else to go for any LInux drivers?

Sorry about all the rant, but I just couldn't stand to leave it open for the same old jive again. There must be a decent source for the drivers I need somewhere, and I'd be most grateful to anyone who could point me to it, or even tell me something about ALSA which I didn't know. Thanks to all who try to help.

[jmadero]

let's start with the laptop brand and model.

Also have you tried the extended volume monitor?

sudo apt-get install alsamixergui

then just type alsamixergui in terminal and make sure everything is up

[waterhead]

You can run alsamixer from the terminal, just enter the command.

alsamixer

The tab key will cycle through the Playback, Capture and All modes. The left/right arrows will navigate to a slider. The up/down arrows will increase/decrease the levels. And the "m" key will mute/unmute an input/output.

To identify the audio chips in your PC, use the lspci command. Post the output of it for us.

lspci