No audio in Porteus v5.0

[CaptainKirk]

Hello, community.

I'm working on a project on my college, where we have several HP t5550 thin clients (https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hp/t5570/index.shtml) with a 64bit VIA processor, 1GB of RAM, and 512MB flash drive. We have previously used them with Porteus 4. Now that Porteus 5 is out, we tried to do the same with the x86-64 version. Due to the limited resources of our thin clients, we only tried XFCE, LXQT, LXDE, and Openbox as desktops. All of them installed successfully. However, when we tried to play a wav file or any other audio file, we are unable to get any sound. With Porteus 4 we were able to play audio files. It seems that either Porteus 5 is not detecting the hardware adequately or the corresponding driver is not included.

The output we get from the machine running Porteus 5 (and below, what we got from Porteus 4).

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aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 1: VT82xx [HDA VIA VT82xx], device 0: VT1708S Analog [VT1708S Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  

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lsmod | grep snd
snd_hda_codec_via      20480  1
snd_hda_codec_generic    53248  1 snd_hda_codec_via
ledtrig_audio          12288  1 snd_hda_codec_generic
snd_hda_intel          32768  0
snd_intel_dspcfg       20480  1 snd_hda_intel
snd_hda_codec          81920  3 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_via
snd_hda_core           45056  4 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_codec_via
led_class              12288  2 snd_hda_codec_generic,input_leds
snd_hwdep              12288  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                69632  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_core
snd_timer              24576  1 snd_pcm

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cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [Generic        ]: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
                      HD-Audio Generic at 0xfbfec000 irq 34
 1 [VT82xx         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA VIA VT82xx
                      HDA VIA VT82xx at 0xfbfe4000 irq 35

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cat /proc/asound/devices
  2: [ 0]   : control
  3: [ 1- 0]: digital audio playback
  4: [ 1- 0]: digital audio capture
  5: [ 1- 0]: hardware dependent
  6: [ 1]   : control
 33:        : timer

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cat /proc/asound/pcm
01-00: VT1708S Analog : VT1708S Analog : playback 1 : capture 1

The output we get from the machine running Porteus 4.

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aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 1: VT82xx [HDA VIA VT82xx], device 0: VT1708S Analog [VT1708S Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

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lsmod | grep snd
snd_hda_codec_via      20480  1
snd_hda_codec_generic    53248  1 snd_hda_codec_via
snd_hda_intel          28672  6
snd_hda_codec          81920  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec_via
snd_hda_core           45056  4 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec_via
snd_hwdep              12288  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                65536  4 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_core
snd_timer              24576  2 snd_pcm

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cat /proc/asound/cards
 1 [VT82xx         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA VIA VT82xx
                      HDA VIA VT82xx at 0xfbfe4000 irq 31

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cat /proc/asound/devices
  2: [ 1]   : control
  3: [ 1- 0]: digital audio playback
  4: [ 1- 0]: digital audio capture
  5: [ 1- 0]: hardware dependent
 33:        : timer
 

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cat /proc/asound/pcm
01-00: VT1708S Analog : VT1708S Analog : playback 1 : capture 1

Greetings from Mexico

[ncmprhnsbl]

what does menu>multimedia>'PulseAudio Volume Control' show in it's 'Output Devices' tab?

[donald]

Hi Captain

same for me - pulseaudio always used the wrong "card"
HDMI in my case but I wanted analog.

In some cases all one has to do is to click the volume icon > audio mixer >
configuration tab > and select a different profile.

Unfortunatly that did not work for me so i had to find out...

Testing for the correct card
aplay -l gives the info {card / device] needed to test which one would work.
aplay -D plughw:0,0 /home/guest/Music/some_song.wav -- sound plays, correct card.

so I added
load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,0
at the bottom of /etc/pulse/default.pa
You will most likely have different values [card/device numbers]

In audio mixer set the profile OFF

restart pulseaudio with pulseaudio -k
...bingo working now.

[CaptainKirk]

what does menu>multimedia>'PulseAudio Volume Control' show in it's 'Output Devices' tab?

Hi ncmprhnsbl.

In the Port section, the only option that apears is Line Out.
And below the volume bar, is a bar that is gray colored.

[CaptainKirk]

Hi Captain

same for me - pulseaudio always used the wrong "card"
HDMI in my case but I wanted analog.

In some cases all one has to do is to click the volume icon > audio mixer >
configuration tab > and select a different profile.

Unfortunatly that did not work for me so i had to find out...

Testing for the correct card
aplay -l gives the info {card / device] needed to test which one would work.
aplay -D plughw:0,0 /home/guest/Music/some_song.wav -- sound plays, correct card.

so I added
load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,0
at the bottom of /etc/pulse/default.pa
You will most likely have different values [card/device numbers]

In audio mixer set the profile OFF

restart pulseaudio with pulseaudio -k
...bingo working now.

Hello, donald.

I tried the two solutions you gave me with the values that aplay showed me (card=1 and device=0); but they didn't work.

This command: aplay -D plughw:1,0 /home/guest/Music/some_song.wav; says that the device is busy.
And this command: pulseaudio -k; sometimes worked and sometimes shows me an error.

[nanZor]

If time is of the essence for this project, and you still can't get audio right, you may want to invest in an inexpensive USB <> Audio dongle instead of fighting something stubborn.

Sabrent, Ugreen and other little usb<>audio dongles come to mind.

It's a slacker solution, but serves me well to keep one on hand, since I have *never* had one not be recognized and work.