Alsa Audio exit selection [Solved, sort of]

[mv]

I have a new machine and do not get any audio signal on the main speakers.
However, the sound is output on the headspeaker.
(To my surprise it is only important what is connected, not where it is
connected, i.e. I have the same phenomenon if I switch the connections of
the speaker and headspeaker.)

On Ubuntu, I can switch the both channels separately, and both work as expected,
Actually, I can even control the volume on both exits independently on Ubuntu.
However, AFAIK Ubuntu uses pulseaudio.

With alsamixer, there are Master, Headphone, Speaker, and many more,
but the "speaker" seems to have no effect (no matter whether I attempt to
mute/unmute it or change the volume).

How do I make the "normal" exit switch non-silent with alsa?

Some data: I use alsa-{lib,utils}-1.1.8 with the default /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf
The output of lspvi -v for the Audio device is:

00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device a348 (rev 10)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 86ca
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 32, IRQ 124
Memory at a1130000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Memory at a1000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [80] Vendor Specific Information: Len=14 <?>
Capabilities: [60] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

Except for the IRQ number, the output on Ubuntu is the same.

A remarkable difference in the lspci output is that Ubuntu has loaded some kenel module
for the "Communication Controler". device. I have no idea whether this device might be
related to the problem.

[bunder]

The communication controller is probably for Intel ME / AMT / whatever they want to call it...

That said, master and PCM should be all you need to make the rear audio work... if you have an auto-mute toggle in alsamixer, try turning it off.

If that doesn't work, maybe some module settings need tweaking, but I haven't seen "pin" problems in a long while.

From what I can tell on the internet, 8086:a348 is a Cannon Lake PCH cAVS device.
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[mv]

Thanks for the reply.

I just edited the text when you were posting:
The switches shown by alsamixer are Master, Headphone, Speaker, PCM, and others.

PCM is fixed at 100% and cannot be moved.
Master and Headphone work as expected.
Speaker has no effect. It can be muted and unmuted and volume changed, but nothing gives any sound.

A disappointing thing I observed is that exchanging the exi ("speaker cable in the headphone exit")
did not help, either. Also under Ubuntu, it still is recognized as a speaker (and not headphone).

The kernel is configured now such that it contains only the Realtek HD-audio codec (SND_HDA_CODEC_REALTEK).
(But I had also tried with all codecs enabled, and it made no difference.)

[bunder]

Strange that PCM is stuck... Which kernel version are you running? You might want to try 4.20.x if you're using something like 4.14 at the moment. Sadly I'm out of ideas, unless you wanted to look through ubuntu's kernel source and see if they apply any patches that aren't in mainline.
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[mv]

Maybe the following kernel messages are a problem:

[Jaglover]

Actually amixer output tells more than alsamixer. Run amixer -h to see what it can do for you.
_________________
My Gentoo installation notes.
Please learn how to denote units correctly!

[mv]

[mv]

In Ubuntu, there do not appear any messages for the "generic" codec, but just the same messages for the realtek codec.
This is actually a bit strange, since it is not possible during kernel configuration to deselect the generic code when the realtek codec is selected.

The other remarkable thing is that under ubuntu the "default" value shown by alsamixer for "Speaker" is 0 and muted.
(While on gentoo it claims to be unmuted and 100% [I am not loading the previous settings on system start]).

I also tried the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf file from ubuntu (which has many options set which I did not understand), but it did not help under gentoo eiher.

[bunder]

I believe "speaker" is the beeper.
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[mv]

It is not kernel-related:

I booted the gentoo system with the ubuntu kernel (and ubuntu initrd and ubuntu modules) and obtained the same (broken) result.

Two other observations:
1. Under Ubuntu (the full system) I could modify PCM.
2. Under Ubuntu the "Speaker" in alsamixer keeps showing 0 and muted, although I can (successfully) play a test sound through the speakers (using pulseaudio, of course).

[mv]

[mv]

[mv]

Installing pulseaudio alone didn't help; and calling pavuctrl-qt randomly crashes system when it tries to connect pulseaudio.

[mv]

It turned out to be a different sort of problem than I expected:

What I didn't tell is that with the change of the machine I also had to change the monitor cable to HDMI.

I didn't tell this because I had no idea that HDMI is able to transfer sound as it seems now:
The speakers of my monitor by default switch to that sound when using HDMI.

So I could solve the problem by just changing the default settings of my monitor:
Then the sound cable works.

The more elegant solution would of course be to send the sound over HDMI
which is apparently what Ubuntu does (using pulseaudio) (which is what was causing my confusion).

I have no idea how Ubuntu achieves that.
At least alsamixer doesn't appear to have any switch for HDMI.

Maybe HDMI sound output is not possible without pulseaudio?

[Jaglover]

mv,

PulseAudio cannot do anything without using ALSA (or OSS4), I use HDMI output occasionally to send sound to my TV set. No PulseAudio here.
_________________
My Gentoo installation notes.
Please learn how to denote units correctly!

[mv]

Thanks for the reply. Looking at the kernel, it seems that I will need

[mv]

I have split the next posting to a separate thread.