Alsa/PulseAudio supposedly works, but still no sound

[Dodec]

After dual-booting as per Sakaki's method, I haven't been able to get sound to work in Gentoo no matter what I try. I have pulseaudio enabled in my USE flags and alsa-plugins is compiled as such, when I play audio the volume fluctuates as expected in pavucontrol (though the 100% level is also listed as 0dB, which is probably part of the problem in some way, but I don't know how to fix it), alsamixer responds to keypresses...but despite all of this, no sound comes out of the computer. I've removed myself from the audio group as per the wiki's recommendations, but when I try

[patrix_neo]

I love systemD

Do not use genup as a magical key to everything. That is not a good way to deal with low level stuff like sound, graphics or using a keyboard.

FFS whom approved this????

[Ant P.]

[Dodec]

[Ant P.]

Your kernel is missing drivers for your sound card, or something else in your system is broken and not loading them. Post the output of these:

[Dodec]

lspci -k: http://bpaste.net/show/917dc5e09c37

zgrep SND /proc/config.gz returns nothing at all, and neither does dmesg | grep snd.

I take this to mean that I don't have the drivers in my kernel somehow? Though this is odd, because I checked the kernel settings cited in the wiki and they checked out fine.

[Ant P.]

If /proc/config.gz doesn't even show you commented-out lines then you haven't got any kind of sound support in your kernel. How old is this kernel you're running?

[NeddySeagoon]

ashlyw42,

Its easy to configure, build and install one kernel, then run another.
That could account for your symptoms.

What does

[Sakaki]

ashlyw42,

further to what NeddySeagoon has just said, there is one particular issue that can cause a kernel mismatch, when following my EFI install guide. Specifically, the boot file used early in the install process is /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi, but (to avoid conflict with other OSes in the case where the EFI system partition will be shared), this is changed (at a later stage in the guide) to /EFI/Boot/gentoo.efi.

If your EFI BIOS somehow loses the corresponding "Gentoo USB" entry in the EFI boot list, it may still try booting the old /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi kernel (as this is a default path for most BIOSes) - leaving you unwittingly running the mid-install kernel (which has a config derived from the Gentoo minimal install ISO image kernel, and so has very few drivers activated), instead than the one you think you are working on.

Try commenting out the EFIBOOTFILE line in /etc/buildkernel.conf, running buildkernel again, and rebooting - this will ensure that the /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi is up to date (and is definitely the path your BIOS tries to boot from).
_________________
Regards,

sakaki

[Dodec]

Thanks for the replies everyone, unfortunately the past few days I've been focused more on getting electricity in my apartment again so I hadn't gotten a chance to read through this until now.

NeddySeagoon and Ant P.: uname shows that the kernel is from 29 June 2016.

Sakaki: I tried what you suggested, and while that did open up lots more options in make menuconfig, when I recompiled the kernel with support for my sound card, alsamixer now shows the proper device but doesn't offer volume controls--the display where the sound levels would normally be is there, but it looks like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n34yge9vfqkz90u/fixed%20Screenshot%20from%202016-08-05%2023-12-08.png?dl=0 and nothing I do will change the volume--none of the keyboard controls work. Additionally, testing it from the command line as per the ALSA wiki page fails--the command works fine according to the command line output, but still no sound is emitted.

...so at least now I have a different problem?

[The Doctor]

Have you taken a look at the F6 options?

You probably need to give your user an .asoundrc config file.
_________________
First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

Apologies if I take a while to respond. I'm currently working on the dematerialization circuit for my blue box.

[Dodec]

The Doctor: I have to go into the F6 options to even get the HDMI card in the first place--the default is PulseAudio for some reason, which lspci -k doesn't even show. I tried putting together an .asoundrc file as per the ALSA wiki page for HDMI devices, but now when I attempt to run speaker-test I get the error:

[Logicien]

The sound through HDMI in Linux is provided by the video driver. In your case it is the free Radeon support (with non free firmwares ). The Radeon support have an option to activate audio.

To have a chance to make it work you need to have the good firmware files available where the Radeon support is, if Radeon is compile in the kernel image, you need to have the firmware files in the kernel image or in an initramfs. If the Radeon support is in module, you need to have the firmware files in the initramfs if the module is there. Otherwise, the radeon module and firmware files are loaded when the kernel mount the real root filesystem. In any case, this imply that the appropriate firmware files are emerged.

So, from the kernel command line you pass the parameter

[Dodec]

Logicien: well, that did something, because now speaker-test doesn't give the error I mentioned, but it still doesn't actually make any sound. How would I go about finding the Radeon firmware? I didn't see anything related to Radeon in the kernel that I hadn't already enabled.

[Logicien]

Your suppose to have a directory /lib/firmware/radeon if you have install the appropriate package. There are the firmware files needed by Radeon to flash your card to dialog with it. Not all firmware files in this directory are needed but, there is no problem to put all of them in an initramfs to be sure all the needed one are available.

You can create an initramfs with the Radeon firmware files like this

[Dodec]

Logicien: I followed those instructions as best I could, but still no dice. The output of

[Logicien]

I see no complain about missing firmware. radeondrmfb is the primary framebuffer fb0. So, if the display work with Hdmi and other video ports, the fact that the Hdmi audio do not work may depend on Alsamixer setup but more on Pulseaudio setup.

I think you are in the same situation than me when I had an Amd/Ati video card. I never been able to make Hdmi audio work and I don't remember if it was working with Fglrx. You can try this proprietary Xorg driver if you really want Hdmi audio work.

Now I have an Nvidia video card and Hdmi audio work with Nouveau. The same with i915 with an Intel video card. I don't use Hdmi audio, only Hdmi video. Most of the time I use Bluetooth or Usb headsets even not my desktop and laptops integrated sound cards.

I cannot help you more here. I can only say to wait someone who have any new idea or make a search on the subject on the Web.
_________________
Paul

[Dodec]

...I figured it out, everyone. I went back through and reconfigured my kernel as per the Radeon wiki page, and added a couple of other things like the Realtek drivers because I remembered something about that from when I was configuring Windows...and it turns out that even though lspci -k was showing only the HDMI card, the Realtek one is the one that actually works, so I do indeed have working sound now. (Also, speaker-test is for some reason just completely broken, but any other kind of sound on my computer works just fine.)

So, lesson learned: Even if you think you know exactly what kind of hardware you have, try alternatives because they might just be the correct ones.