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New Artix user, problems with sound

Hi, I'm a new Artix user, but not a new Linux user. I have been using Linux since 1997-ish, starting with Slackware. For the past 10+ years I have been using Funtoo Linux, but last week the maintainer of Funtoo announced that for personal reasons Funtoo is being discontinued, so I've been looking for distributions to switch to. Artix seems the closest I found to the Funtoo philosophy, did some testing, installed a few times and I like it so I think I'll stick around.

Now my problem for which I'm posting here relates to configuring sound. I managed to get sound working without a problem on a Dell SFF machine with Intel HDA, and on a Ryzen laptop. But now I did an install on my main desktop, which is a Ryzen 5950X with a RTX4090 card in it; I want sound output through HDMI from the video card to my monitor's built-in speakers. FWIW I use OpenRC and XFCE for DE. I installed the nvidia drivers, alsa, pulseaudio, alsa-pulseaudio and a bunch of other alsa packages I found. Edited /etc/asound.conf with the default sound card I want as shown by aplay -l (the nvidia card is listed as card 0).

In XFCE, the sound mixer it shows that the sound it being sent to the correct hardware device, and I can hear system sounds through the display speakers. But I don't get any application sounds. Any videos I play in VLC or through firefox/youtube are silent. The audio mixer shows that there is sound output through the applications and into the mixer, and supposedly sent to the monitor speakers, but I can't hear anything. The output is not muted in alsamixer either.

I can't figure it out - why do I get system sounds but no application sounds?

Re: New Artix user, problems with sound

Reply #2 –
Thank you, will try. I'm not familiar with pipewire, but I'm open to new things. :)

Re: New Artix user, problems with sound

Reply #3 –
Okay I have installed pipewire, pipewire-alsa, pipewire-pulse and pipewire-jack; updated my .xinitrc to start pipewire when I start Xorg. I still get no sound, and now it doesn't see any hardware devices at all, the only selectable output is a "Dummy" device.

And 'pactl list sinks' shows

pactl list sinks
Sink #33
   State: SUSPENDED
   Name: auto_null
   Description: Dummy Output
   Driver: PipeWire
   Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
   Channel Map: front-left,front-right
   Owner Module: 4294967295
   Mute: no
   Volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
           balance 0.00
   Base Volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
   Monitor Source: auto_null.monitor
   Latency: 0 usec, configured 0 usec
   Flags: DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY
   Properties:
      node.name = "auto_null"
      device.description = "Dummy Output"
      audio.rate = "48000"
      audio.channels = "2"
      audio.position = "FL,FR"
      media.class = "Audio/Sink"
      factory.name = "support.null-audio-sink"
      node.virtual = "true"
      monitor.channel-volumes = "true"
      factory.id = "19"
      clock.quantum-limit = "8192"
      client.id = "32"
      node.driver = "true"
      port.group = "stream.0"
      node.loop.name = "data-loop.0"
      library.name = "audioconvert/libspa-audioconvert"
      object.id = "33"
      object.serial = "33"
   Formats:
      pcm


That is all, no other sinks.

Re: New Artix user, problems with sound

Reply #4 –
I don't know then. You mentioned editing /etc/asound.conf
What happens without those edits ?
I don't have that file on my system at all.

Re: New Artix user, problems with sound

Reply #5 –
 by any chance, have you forgot "wireplumber"?

Re: New Artix user, problems with sound

Reply #6 –
No, I have wireplumber installed, and it's getting started from .xinitrc

It's weird, after restarting the system a couple of times (not because of this but because I was testing various configurations in fstab) sound started working. I didn't touch any config files or settings regarding sound. It just started seeing the hardware output devices, and producing sound. It's strange, but I'll take it. :)

Re: New Artix user, problems with sound

Reply #7 –
Hello and welcome,

I have been using alsa only for several years.
I removed all pulse packets except libpulse and libcanberra.

I use alsa and the nice and very practical qastools mixer on different pc:
https://forum.artixlinux.org/index.php/topic,4318.msg27848.html#msg27848

Note: I don't play games and don't use wine or steam.
But I have sound in all my apps.

Re: New Artix user, problems with sound

Reply #8 –
Thank you.
Big project today, installing Artix on my fileserver. Migrating all the configs etc. I hope zfs works well on Artix - no reason why it shouldn't, just sayin' :)