Ubuntu
alsa-driver package

Sound problem after upgrade 8.04 to 8.10

Asked by Bob Harvey

I have been running Ubuntu on my HP Compaq nx9010 laptop on most versions since 6.06 without any sound problems. Recently decided to move from 8.04 to 8.10. Sound stopped working after the upgrade, which took me to version 2.6.26.25-2-386. Went through the suggestions in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting:

(1) installing 2.6.26.27-11-generic was a BAD move as lots of problems occurred, the main one that it couldn't find my /home folder and decided an fsck was needed. Backed off to 2.6.26.25-2-386 which was still OK.
(2) Tried other troubleshoot suggestions as well as those people had found in the forums but eventually found that backing off to 2.6.24-23-386 fixed the problem, or at least was a workaround. Thanks for that suggestion!

Several other people have had sound problems with 8.10 and have come up with various workarounds -- I hope that this one might help someone else while the experts figure out exactly what got broken.

PROBLEM:
Now I don't know whether my system is properly up to date (nothing shows up as needing update in Update Manager). I am guessing that the later versions which got installed as part of the upgrade might be confusing the package check because they are presumably still on the machine (all I did was remove the later versions from the grub menu.lst file). How can I clean out the newer versions (which all break my sound), especially linux-generic which seriously messed things up?

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Ubuntu alsa-driver Edit question
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Solved by:
marcobra (Marco Braida)
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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#1

Please be sure all needed kernel modules are installed to make this check and install them:
So open a Terminal from the menu Applications → Accessories → Terminal and type:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install linux-ubuntu-modules-$(uname -r)

give your user password when requested, you don't see nothing when you type it, then press enter.

Then reboot your pc.

-- Please try to watch what audio cards are detected on your system please type:
asoundconf list

if more than one sound cards is detected by your system to set the default soundcard

asoundconf set-default-card PARAMETER

change PARAMETER with the name of a one detected sound card

-- Please try to delete making a backup copy of this conf files
mv .asoundrc .asoundrc_old
mv .asoundrc.asoundconf .asoundrc.asoundconf.old
sudo mv /etc/asound.conf /etc/asound.conf.old

Please take a look at this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205449

Reboot your pc to see to check if you sound now work.

Hope this helps

Revision history for this message
Bob Harvey (bob-harvey) said : 		#2

Marcobra,
Thank you for this prompt response. I have performed the actions you suggest. I am not sure that you have understood exactly my problem -- on re-reading my question I think it is confusing. So here goes:
BACKGROUND HISTORY
I upgraded from Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10 and my sound card stopped working.
At this point I was on kernel version 2.6.26.25-2-386.
After trying various suggestions in the forum I updated the kernel to 2.6.26.27-11-generic, which broke a lot of things.
I re-booted back to 2.6.26.25-2-386 on the grub menu (menu.lst) and things worked OK, except for sound as before.
I tested booting to earlier kernel versions and found that sound started working again provided my kernel version was no later than 2.6.24-23-386, so I deleted the entries for the later versions out of the grub menu.
Deleted menu entries are: 2.6.26.27-11-generic and 2.6.26.25-2-386.
PROBLEM
The later versions of the kernel (2.6.26.27-11-generic and 2.6.26.25-2-386) are still installed. How can I make sure that system updates work correctly, since the kernel I am using is not the most recent? Or don't I need to bother?

Revision history for this message
Best marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#3

I think updates of installed apps will works good still they are not depending from the installed kernel.
You might need only to keep and don't delete your working kernel also you can if the incoming kernel might dress your issue.
I think isn't a good idea to delete the item from the grub menu, the kernels are still installed and simply you don't see them at boot.
I think is better to force grub to start from a defined kernel modifying the file /boot/grub/menu.lst and then typing sudo update-grub

Hope this helps

Revision history for this message
Bob Harvey (bob-harvey) said : 		#4

Thanks marcobra, that solved my question.

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Mike Oliver (mike-oliver) said : 		#5

This seems to represent the same problem I'm having with my Toshiba Notebook, NB100 that I have registered as a separate question. I did the upgrade and got the same result.

However, I understand very little of what has been said here - I am non-technical and very new to Linux. The talk of "kernels", "grubs", etc. is very confusing and means nothing to me.

Could somebody please tell me in plain English what I need to do?

Thanks,

Mike

Revision history for this message
Bob Harvey (bob-harvey) said : 		#6

Hi Mike,

I sympathise -- it's taken me ages to get a grip on even the simplest aspects of how Ubuntu works under the hood. And I am sure that any explanation I give will be full of my own mis-understandings, but here goes:

There are two main parts to an operating system like Ubuntu: the Kernel and the Rest. The Rest comprises things like the user interface (usually Gnome or KDE), language compilers and stuff, while the Kernel contains the critical stuff which connects the software (the Rest) you're running to the hardware you're using. The different versions of Ubuntu (e.g. 8.04, 8.10) mostly are about the Rest; within a Ubuntu version there can be different Kernels, which contain the match to your hardware (such as 2.6.26.25-2-386 and 2.6.24-23-386 for Intel hardware).

When your computer starts up you may see a menu which lists several of these depending how many upgrades of Ubuntu you have performed. And like if you start Windows in Safe Mode you get the option to go back to a previous working version, so also with Ubuntu. The menu is called Grub (I have no idea why) and if you're able to boot into Windows as I can then it appears as an option down the bottom.

So if you can see this Grub menu when your machine starts then try selecting an earlier version of the Kernel and work back until your hardware operates correctly (cross fingers!).

Hope that helps -- there's lots more to this but I am getting to the edge of what I know and I don't want to confuse you with too much explanation or mislead you with my errors.

Cheers, Bob.