[SOLVED] Gentoo has no sound working

[enrico68]

Hello forum,

after a few attempts, I finally got to a fully working Gentoo with KDE and internet working. It is a perfect build, smooth, just the way I like it, expect for sound. I have just ALSA installed, as I did not want to make things worse by adding more software on top of it and creating confusion for me or anyone who will try to help.

The weird thing is that, despite having emerged media-sound/alsa-utils, I cannot get alsamix to work, as it returns with a bunch of error messages:

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enrico@tux ~ $ alsamixer
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/src/confmisc.c:855:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/src/conf.c:5205:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_inum returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/src/confmisc.c:422:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/src/conf.c:5205:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/src/confmisc.c:1342:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/src/conf.c:5205:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/src/conf.c:5728:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/src/control/control.c:1575:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL default
cannot open mixer: No such file or directory

This is my audio card:

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enrico@tux ~ $ lspci | grep -i audio
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Meteor Lake-P HD Audio Controller (rev 20)

I know the card works, as I have tried with other Linux distributions.

This is not my first topic on the sound issue, as I have one open but unresolved as of I believe November of 2025, but that was with a different kernel and systemd, this time I used Open RC and I also had issues with internet and startx, which I was finally able to resolve on my own.

This topic might go unresolved once again, in which case I will somewhow deal with it on my own, as I noticed in the last few posts that I opened I did not receive pretty much any help. Maybe I hurt someone's feelings in my previous posts? It could be, and if that is the csae, I deeply apologize, it was not my intention.

Let's see if this time I am more lucky and can finally resolve this issue through someone's help. But in case I do not receive any response, I will get the message, and deal with it...

Thank you in advance for any help and support, hopefully I will sort this out with your precious help.

[NeddySeagoon]

enrico68,

What does ls -l /dev/snd tell?
It should list all of your sound devices if your kernel is in good shape.

What about lspci -nnk ?
We don't need it all, just the block for your sound card.
-nnk shows the vendor and device IDs and -k shows the kernel modules loaded and in use.
There are two sound stacks now, that will let us check that you are using the right one for your sound card.

Lastly, /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/ is the path to the build location.
It should be empty now if the the build completed with no errors as portage will have removed it.

[enrico68]

Hi NeddySeagoon,

here is the output requested:

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enrico@tux ~ $ ls -l /dev/snd
total 0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  1 Jan 25 14:09 seq
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 33 Jan 25 14:09 timer

lspci -nnk

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0:1f.3 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation Meteor Lake-P HD Audio Controller [8086:7e28] (rev 20)
        Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:2328]
        Kernel driver in use: sof-audio-pci-intel-mtl
        Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_sof_pci_intel_mtl

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enrico@tux ~ $ lspci -nnk | grep snd
        Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_sof_pci_intel_mtl

/var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/

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enrico@tux ~ $ cd /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/ 
bash: cd: /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.2.14/work/alsa-lib-1.2.14/: No such file or directory

[enrico68]

Hello NeddysSeagoon,

I found the solution to my sound issues:

in a post I found a reference to a "dmic bug", so I created the following file: /etc/modprobe.d/disable_dmic.conf.. Inside of it, I added:

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options snd_hda_intel dmic_detect=0

.

I rebooted my system, and now alsamixer works, and aplay -l shows:

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enrico@tux ~ $ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC257 Analog [ALC257 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

.

I finally solved my sound problems, I am so happy, now everything works as supposed. I posted my solution for everyone to see and maybe try to their own benefit.

Thank you for coming to my rescue, it is greatly appreciated,

Best Regards.

[dmpogo]

I went the other way on a similar platform - I have disabled snd-hda-intel (actually all PCI sound) in the kernel, and let soc/sof subsystem deal with the sound. Took a bit of effort to have microphone working, though