Sound Issue Zorin 15 Core

Well still having issues with Zorin 15 Beta - no such issue with FerenOS (and an existing installation I might add!) that has picked up my ALSA settings well without recourse to the command line that zorinantwerp posted in another thread that I accidentally hijacked! So I may be migrating to Feren OS at the way things are progressing!

Hi Swarf,

Not quite on theme, but I downloaded Feren to have a look at the .iso.

Now find it on my desktop (as well as in downloads) and can't be sent to wastebasket - strange.

I will probably give it - Feren OS - a go, dual booting on my old Windows XP desktop.

Well, I am now able to get some sound using Audigy RX card but not the one from Think Penguin. But I must test properly and remove the Audigy Card. Sound works best in Makulu Lindoz 15 so far but GNU/Linux software pumping sound out of some of the newly installed Logitech Z506 surround sound system!

Finally bottomed this critter!

Information: Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy RX 7.1/5.1 Surround Sound card (SB1550).

If you do intend to fit a PCIe sound card in your machine, DON'T make the mistake I did by putting it in one of the slots paired/close to another near 'top' of the slots - these are assigned for RAID array of SSD's - always use the standalone slot near the bottom.

Now then what you need to change in the BIOS (screenshot below relates to an Asus PRIME X470-PRO) - and if you haven't updated the BIOS since purchase (like me LOL!) update it to the latest version - for me it was BIOS 4207 which I used using the EZFlash Internet method of updating - went without a glitch - until I noticed that it had installed / updated PXE (network booting options) - so you need to disable them in the Boot section of the BIOS - I'd also somehow discombobulated the SATA cable to my Makulu install which meant no GRUB to boot off!

In the BIOS:



Basically you need to go to 'Advanced' settings page and then 'Onboard Devices Configuration'

1. Disable HD Audio Controller
2. Ensure that the PCI switch controller is set to 'Auto'

Now to sort things out at the desktop end - you will need to blacklist 'snd_hda_intel' and if you also have a Graphics card with an HDMI connector which will grab the sound before your soundcard you will need to blacklist 'snd_hda_nvidia' too:



[Acknowledgements to: https://www.techtimejourney.net/how-to- ... -in-linux/]

I have left pulse audio to 'autospawn' at boot and not interfering with that causes no conflict. I have installed some ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture packages, including Audigy 2 emulation packages via Synaptic Package Manager).

So now we have sound through the SoundBlaster Card in Zorin 15 Beta:



Makulu Lindoz 15 64-bit:



and lastly FerenOS 64-bit:



YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!

Lastly, if your motherboard supports it, make a BIOS profile and export to USB as a *.CMO file in case it ever throws a wobbly or for whatever reason you need to reset to BIOS defaults and then restore to your preferred profile and remember to Save and Exit the BIOS or it won't hold the backup details!

Well, that was shortlived! I had sound for a day (well an evening) and then booted the machine today to find 'dummy' sound card and Zorin was now showing a new nvidia HDP 81 (HDMI element to the Zotac 1030) possibly (no) thanks to Ubuntu's HWE stack on updates! I have ended up having to enable the onboard sound (High Definition Audio) in order to blacklist it and the the nvidia sound - both ironically showing up as 'Intel'!

So almost ditching Zorin, gave PureOS a try - dummy card, Antix 17 which is supposed to be ALSA based (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) - dummy.

Then I discovered this:

https://www.howtoinstall.co/en/ubuntu/x ... ion=remove

I then added ALSA packages and in particular QasMixer as the Audio/Sound settings in the Settings interface became redundant as it was tied in to Pulse Audio. So let's see how long this lasts! LOL! If it gets any worse I may have to cave in to Windows 10! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!

Well this is still not solved following loss of sound yet again. Every single time I have to remove Pulse Audio then reinstall it. I was advised to try another kernel (5 plus) yet other OS's installed have had no such issues. All my other OS's installed (apart from Elive) have maintained sound consistently after tweaking post install of the hardware. What is rather telling is that all these distributions have in common as they are based on Debian and not Ubuntu. The most impressive so far is Sparky Linux 5.7, the other two consistent sound friendly are Feren OS and Makulu Lindoz 15. Sparky appears to have ALSA and Pulse Audio living side-by-side and using current kernel as Zorin 15 Beta. My plea to team Zorin therefore is to abandon Ubuntu and use Debian stable branch. If things don't improve, after I have completed unofficial manuals I may be moving on - let's hope not!

Well after the update today I get login sound! I won't mark this as solved just yet - just in case!

Oh and an update on the other OS's both Feren and Makulu lost the sound card - only SparkyLinux has maintained it without any loss. In Feren OS I had to use TimeShift to get it back!

Okay! Update 11.06.2019. I decided to boot into SparkyLinux 5.7 and launch Synaptic Package Manager. I entered the search term, 'sound' to find all packages that might relate to sound and I found these:





Sparky as you remember has remained consistent in terms of the SoundBlaster Audigy Rx 7.1/5.1 surround sound card. I access the screenshots from Zorin and copied them across then opened up Synaptic Package Manager in Zorin and looked to see what packages were missing and any additional packages I could remove. I was very careful not to remove one item which I forget now but when I attempted to do it a lot of Zorin apps would have gone so applied the break to mark for removal!
I have rebooted several times. The only app which disappeared which I am not overly concerned about is Pitivi - I much prefer KDEnlive any way for video editing.
Will still not mark as [SOLVED] just yet. I did notice that Sparky has some newer packages, most notably that Python 3.7 is installed but in Zorin 15 it is only 3.6 - whether that would make any difference I don't know. The login sound is intermittent but since my sound is now stable (hopefully) I am not overly bothered.

UPDATE: I have to do reboots - first boot may not have sound, reboot, have sound - ad nauseum!