Audio Not Working

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MacLife magazine wrote an article on how to install Linux on a Mac (and how not to screw it up). I was able to install it on my bootcamp partition without a problem. Everything is fine except there's no sound coming out of the speakers in Linux. :(

So, I went to the MacLife forum and posted my problem. After 25 topic views and 12 hours of waiting, NO ONE replied to it. Looking at the previous problems people have posted, they barely solve any technical support problems and that ****** me off.

Now, I'm posting about my problem here, hoping someone can help me. The volume is not on mute and I looked for new drivers (the only driver that was available to update was the ATI drivers). Linux is somewhat unfamiliar to me so right now I have no other idea how to get my speakers to properly work. Anyone might know why the audio isn't working?

Here's my general system info:

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac7,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: IM71.007A.B00
SMC Version: 1.20f4
Serial Number: XXXXXXXXXXX

Intel High Definition Audio:

Device ID: 0x106B00A0
Audio ID: 48
Available Devices:
Speaker:
Connection: Internal
Headphone:
Connection: Combo
Microphone:
Connection: Internal
Line In:
Connection: Combo
S/P-DIF Out:
Connection: Combo
S/P-DIF In:
Connection: Combo

Any feedback is appreciated...
 

bobtomay

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edit: looks like you found some help - good goin' guys
 

vansmith

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The best way to start this is to know which distribution of Linux you are using.
 
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Finding out the exact model of the sound card, though difficult, is going to go a long way to helping out. Chances are there is probably a driver out there, but you may have to add support for it by configuring support for the driver in a kernel, compiling and then installing the new kernel.

Though this process is not as bad as it sounds, it's not trivial. One thing you could try, in Linux type the following as root at a command prompt:

lspci -vv

This should give you a device list of every device on your system and you should at least find more information about your sound card. Note, while Linux does have plug and play type capabilities, sound is generally the real challenge with any distro. If the Linux install did not recognize it the first time around it's probably something you are going to have to add support for. Intel makes a few sound cards so getting the right one with the right support can be frustrating.

The other approach would be to install Linux via Parallel's of VMWare and see if the audio is functioning. You could probably get a pretty good idea of what type of sound card it is via the emulation layer.
 
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ok...

I'm using Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu.

After using the command you gave me, I got a huge list of info, it's too much to fit into one post :S

I'm going to review it and see if there's a driver or anything of the sort that I can download.

EDIT: Hmm... Access Denied?

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
Subsystem: Apple Computer Inc. Device 00a0
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 256 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 20
Region 0: Memory at 90700000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
 
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You can limit the verbosity of the lspci command as well by doing

lspci -v

or simply

lspci

the -vv option was probably too much.
 

vansmith

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You could also simplify that for our sake: lscpi -v | grep "Multimedia audio". Or, you could just execute lspci with no switches (ie. simply execute lspci) and decipher the audio controller from that list.
 
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vansmith

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Turn everything up - I learned the hard way when I first struggled with Linux that this could be the problem. The card is recognized which from my experience is usually the case for integrated audio. Try using alsamixer to turn up the volume (run alsamixer from the bash prompt). Run "alsactl store" (w/o the quotation marks) afterwards to store the new configuration.

I would also recommend reloading the modules used by alsa by executing the following: sudo alsa reload.
 

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