Hi all,
I've been trying stuff myself and got help from someone (debianuser) at #alsa IRC, but without success! I got the advice to explain the issue in this mailing list!
I'm running Linux Mint 18 on a all-in-one Dell XPS One 2710. Most stuff works, except sound.
The former Mint version also sound from the speakers worked out of the box. Now, I have to switch from the Pulse Audio volume control from "Speakers" to "Headphones (unplugged)" every time I start up to get audio from the internal speakers, which is working well then, annoying, is probably an issue that belongs in another group and not the reason I'm writing you! :)
The XPS One 2710 has a S/PDIF Toslink (optical) connection. Back in the days that Microsoft wasn't trying to shove up Windows 10 to everyone, I successfully could get output from this connection to my JVC Receiver from Windows7 of the box.
I find it hard to have it configured under Linux.
Partly, with help from a anonymous debianuser on #alsa IRC I checked with alsamixer that the S/PDIF was not muted. Also, with the Jack Retasking for HDA tool, I enforced Pin ID: 0x1e is a SPDIF Out connection. After this, the Pulse Audio Tools shows several new interesting Built-in Audio options and I think "Digital Stereo (IEC958) Outout looks most promising. So I select this one and with Output Devices I select "Digital Output (S/PDIF). Then, when I play something on the box, the volume meters actually show that there is something playing, but I can't hear anything from the JVC receiver! The receiver supports PCM to DTS, but no sound is coming out of it!
Thanks if you could help me out! I am happy to help you when you need more information or want we to test something. I had this problem on the previous Linux Mint LTS version and tried to install a newer kernel and alsa driver, which didn't work - so I decided to wait for the current LTS.
I made a fresh info: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=556ae2bdae66341579831231ef2d90ca0d7c8e24
If you need one with other settings, please let me know!
Best wishes, M.