Hey everyone! I hope you can lend a hand. After a year on Arch Linux, I recently decided to format my disk and reinstall it. Usually, the audio setup goes smoothly with the `archinstall` tool, but this time it didn't. I've been confused about whether to use Pipewire, PulseAudio, or Pipewire-Pulse, so I thought I'd try Ubuntu instead. Bad idea! I still had no audio - just a 'dummy' device showing up in settings.
I moved on to Fedora and Linux Mint, and the same issue popped up. Even when I tried reinstalling Arch with a different desktop environment, still nothing worked. My laptop is a ThinkPad X13 Gen 1, and I know the sound hardware is fine because I can hear sounds during the Arch installation media. I even booted into Windows 10, and sound worked perfectly there.
I'm really stuck on how to troubleshoot this. Any advice would be awesome! Thanks a ton for reading!
2 Answers
Sounds like your audio card might be having compatibility issues with the kernel. This can happen if it's been accidentally dropped by the driver. I recommend sticking with Arch and going through their wiki on sound systems. Follow the instructions to identify your sound card and check the drivers using commands like `lsmod | grep snd`, `lspci | grep -i audio`, and `lshw -c sound`. You might need to install specific drivers or even roll back to a version that works for you. It's a hassle, but it’s worth a shot! Good luck!
Just a heads up, jumping between different distros might not fix the core issue. Make sure to check where your audio output is being directed. If you’re using Pipewire, it involves a lot of complex setups. Have you tried `pavucontrol`? It's a great tool for managing audio outputs and can help troubleshoot what’s wrong. Even if you see 'dummy' output, it might give some clues!
Yeah, I used pavucontrol, but it only showed the dummy option this time. I'm not using HDMI or anything like that, so I’m really puzzled.
That sounds a bit intimidating, but thank you! I’ll reinstall Arch and follow your advice.