occasionally useful ruby, ubuntu, etc

25Apr/0910

Vostro (1400) + Ubuntu 9.04 + sound issues

Another Ubuntu upgrade, another sound configuration that doesn't work out of the box.  This is what I had to do for Ubuntu 8.10, that also worked for this version:

$ sudo vim /etc/init.d/alsa-utils

Around line 364, replace this

[ "$TARGET_CARD" = "all" ] && log_action_end_msg_and_exit "$EXITSTATUS"
exit $EXITSTATUS
;;
stop)

EXITSTATUS=0
TARGET_CARD="$2"

with

[ "$TARGET_CARD" = "all" ] && log_action_end_msg_and_exit "$EXITSTATUS"
exit $EXITSTATUS
;;
stop)
 ifconfig wlan0 down
ifconfig eth0 down
 EXITSTATUS=0
TARGET_CARD="$2"

Then restart.  In 9.04 I also had to go through my volume control panel and make sure nothing was turned all the way down or muted.  I think I had to unmute the master volume and turn PCM Playback (under HDA Intel) up.

Please comment if this helps you!

UPDATE April 29th, 2009: I also had to reinstall flash in order to get sound working in Firefox again.