Sound on Ubuntu 11.10

[Jamie Paul Griffin]

On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 12:09:28AM -0500, Ric Moore wrote:
> On 12/21/2011 04:32 PM, John Graddy wrote:
> >I have recently upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10 after skipping a couple of
> >upgrades. The magnitude of the changes has been quite a shock.
> >
> >There are apparently a LOT of problems with sound in 11.10.  I have had
> >a problem since upgrading.  I have spent a lot of time chasing sound
> >problems and have put in a couple of fixes.  Nothing seems to work
> >across system boots.
> >
> >Does anyone know if there is an ongoing effort to correct the many sound
> >problems in 11.10?
> 
> Most problems are cured by opening alsamixer, checking that nothing
> critical that you would use it muted. Once you have exited it, then
> open pavucontrol. If your's is a fresh install you may have to
> install it. When you have pavucontrol fired up. select your sound
> system output, like stereo or 5.1, then your input source (like USB
> mike or whatever) then you should be good to go. Keep in mind,
> alsamixer controls the innards of alsa, which is the sound system.
> Pulse just sits on top, like a traffic cop, and directs your
> inputs/outputs to where you want them to go, on the fly. If alsa
> isn't happy, nothing happens at all. Ric
> 

I can second that. I installed 11.10 server about a week ago. I had no sound at all and simply installed alsa and alsa-utils and then used alsamixer to unmute the bits I needed. I have some JBL speaker plugged into my machine and now it all works beautifully. In fact, I've been impressed overall with how well everything has worked after some simple configuration steps. 

	jamie.