matt gillen writes:
> dan moylan wrote:
> > ibm t41 laptop running ubuntu 8.10
> >
> > my audio for such as timidity, play, etc has ceased to work.
> > terminal beeps sound fine.  the sound up/down buttons seem
> > to function normally.
> >
> > a month ago, the sound worked fine -- now it doesn't.
> could there be some software switch i've inadvertantly
> > thrown, or is this likely to be a hardware failure?

> Does Ubuntu use pulseaudio?

i guess so.  ps ax | pulseaudio  shows:

6306 ? Ssl 0:00 /usr/bin/pulseaudio -D --log-target=syslog
6309 ? S   0:00 /usr/lib/pulseaudio/pulse/gconf-helper

> If so, this info from the FAQ might get you going, or at
> least provide more info:
> http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/FAQ

looked there, but didn't find a clue.

> Stop pulseaudio (run "pulseaudio -k"), and start it again
> with "pulseaudio -vv". That will print verbose output of the
> daemon startup. I

tried this, but again, didn't learn any secrets.

> A stop-gap would be to have everything (gnome, individual
> apps, etc) just use the ALSA drivers directly.  It's
> configured differently for all apps, but at this point most
> apps support ALSA and pulseaudio (and esd, arts, etc).

don't know how to do this.
btw, i have the same system on two other machines which work
fine, as did this one up until about a month ago.

laura conrad writes:

> When you say "now it doesn't", does it give an error
> message, or does it just not sound?

no error messages, just no sound.

> In my experience, just not sounding usually means the mixer
> has a screwed up setting.  Get a good mixer -- I usually use
> gnome-alsa-mixer on ubuntu.  There are several check boxes
> with incomprehensible names, and they need to be set right,
> and nobody can tell you what "right" is.  Set a file playing
> and check and uncheck boxes until you can hear it.

don't know that i'm using a mixer. play is part of sox, and
just runs from the command line.  you see it clunking along
through the file, but nothing comes out.

> If there's an error message about the device not being
> available, try restarting alsa ("/etc/init.d/alsa-utils
> restart" on ubuntu), and also running as root.  If
> restarting alsa works, it's an alsa problem; if root works
> and a user doesn't, it's a permission problem.

no error messages.  tried restarting alsa anyway, no effect.

> Sometimes just getting out of firefox fixes that kind of
> problem, too.

i'm not in firefox.

> If it's a laptop, there might be a mute button on the
> keyboard that you pushed by accident.

there is, didn't push it.  has sound up/down buttons as
well.  pushed the up button to max.

> If it's dual boot and it doesn't work in either linux or
> windows, that's the likely answer.

no microsoft windows on any of my machines.

> Any of those possibilities is more likely than hardware just
> ceasing to function without making horrible noises.

i'd like to think so.

> It would really be nice if LINUX sound would some day work
> as well as many other things on LINUX do.

it used to work just fine -- oh, well.

thanks for the suggestions.

dan

j. daniel moylan
84 harvard ave
brookline, ma 02446-6202
617-232-2360 (tel)
810-454-1823 (fax)
jdm-LPA1KyJyIuz1P9xLtpHBDw@public.gmane.org
www.moylan.us
[death to html bloat!]