On Tue, Jan 02, 2024 at 02:23:49AM -0800, Marc MERLIN wrote:
Please file a bug at https://github.com/thesofproject/linux/issues
THanks, done: https://github.com/thesofproject/linux/issues/4758
First, a big thanks for the quick reply and help. For the benefit of archives and the next potential person looking for this, my debian system was lacking alsa-ucm-conf which for this soundcare is not optional at all.
Long gone are the days of simple soundcards that just worked (never mind self made DAC with resistors in the parrallel port :) ), nowadays sound cards need a lot of things for anything to work. I had read about some puzzling defaults of having an amp for speakers, controlled in software, and off by default :-/ but didn't know that mine was so new/complex that it would not show up in alsamixer where you would normally unmute an output and be in your way. Now I've read about alsaucm and maybe there was a magic combination that would have worked with alsamixer but too many variables to try, hence aslaucm.
I spent probably over 10 hours on this building kernels, and comparing debian to ubuntu, and doing a ridiculous amount of diffs between the setups, I was unable to see anything about the output being muted, but I Guess it wasn't being muted, the amp needing to be turned on is yet another thing and it didn't how up where I looked.
So, a few thoughts: 1) for sure, debian package alsa-ucm-conf should be required, not recommended. It's not big, people who can't keep track of everything that changes all the time, have no idea that they need it, and really need it installed by default if their hardware requires it. I've filed a couple of bugs with them, including on the package description that gives little clue that the package can be so essential
Description-en: ALSA Use Case Manager configuration files This package contains ALSA Use Case Manager configuration of audio input/output names and routing for specific audio hardware. They can be used with the alsaucm tool.
2) I spent many hours reading the internet on all issues with sound and muting and why sound could work on headphones and not speakers, and nothing gave me a hint that worked, or even mentioned alsaucm. When I have some time, I'll write a page that I'll try to get indexed so that the next person dealing with this has a better chance to find the answer
3) I failed to find the linux-sound list, that's on me, and my mail to alsa-devel was bouncing for unknown reasons.
A huge huge thanks to you, Kai, for finding this Email and your help.
Marc