If you recently installed Ubuntu, and your sound doesn’t work, don’t fret! Quite often it is just muted, although the muted channel may be hidden by default.
Right-click on the Volume Applet in the notification area (the one that looks like a speaker), and select Open Volume Control.
In the Volume Control window, click Edit -> Preferences. Then tick every single option you see (you can always un-tick them later, if they annoy you). Next, start playing a music file somewhere, and progressively go along raising the volume of each channel and un-muting it. As an example, the sound from my laptop speakers comes through the Surround channel, which is muted (and hidden) by default. If this doesn’t work, you could also try fiddling with the different options in the Switches and Options tabs, if you have them.
One final note: If your sound doesn’t work, have a look under File -> Change Device in the Volume Control program, and see if you have more than one audio device (for example, I have two different drivers available for my one sound card). If you do, try playing around with the settings found in System -> Preferences-> Sound, and change the default audio device.
Quite often you can save yourself a lot of time trying to figure out why the sound isn’t working, when it is simply an obscure, muted channel!
~ub
Tags: sound
13 September 2008 at 12:16 pm |
Hi! I have a problem with the sound in my recently installed Ubuntu distribution. I tried google-ing this problem and I found your blog. Unfortunately, I already tried everything you’ve said and it still doesn’t work, so if you have other suggestions, fell free to contact me on my email address. Thanks a lot!
19 November 2008 at 11:52 am |
Thanks. It really works!!!
18 February 2009 at 2:05 am |
Thanks for the help… solved my problem!!
6 September 2009 at 4:14 pm |
lol! i am feeling like such a n00b…i checked this the first i did, and nothing was muted. i continued my search and 3 hours later i noticed that my “wave out” level was on 0…anoying