So if your like me, you’ve been suffering through some painful sound problems in Ubuntu Hardy, apparently its a known kernel issue, so just sit tight. However, if your like me (or 90% of nerds) then you need some sort of music to code. A little digging revealed that I did not in fact have any of the alsa kernel modules installed for my current kernel. apt-get left me high and dry (also without an nvidia driver yet, but that’s an easy fix).
The simple remedy is to just build the alsa modules yourself, a pretty painless task. The problem is, if you want to have any hope of keeping your install halfway clean, then you need to get those files tracked by dpkg so we avoid conflicts when the modules are fixed. There’s a simple solution:
sudo apt-get install module-assistant
sudo m-a update
sudo m-a prepare
sudo m-a a-i alsa
This utilizes the handy module-assistant package to automatically build alsa for you. 
Reboot and enjoy!
March 31st, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Do you Ubuntu users have to reboot to use some kernel modules? Running depmod and modprobe on the right driver should have been enough.
March 31st, 2008 at 3:55 pm
You could just modprobe, but for users who don’t know the make/model of their integrated soundcard, its just easier.
All I did was (depmod is handled by m-a):
sudo modprobe snd-hda-intel
for my:
82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller
on a:
Dell Latitude D820
March 31st, 2008 at 3:59 pm
[...] Administrator: [...]
March 31st, 2008 at 4:21 pm
..they did put out one bad kernel in alpha, but the main problems for me now are apps that don’t play nice with PulseAudio.
March 31st, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Haha, its the same old problem i got with Ubuntu 7.10. But yes this works well
April 1st, 2008 at 1:38 am
This problem isn’t common enough that I have any idea what you’re describing from the detail provided
ALSA modules are installed and working fine for me on Hardy.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Yeah, my sound is laggy as hell with some apps.
Not feeling pulse audio tbh.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:18 am
changing gstreamer to use ALSA instead of pulseaudio fixed it for my rhythmbox lag issues.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
No problems with pulse audio, after I finally got it working. What I really hate is having to do this every time a new kernel image is released.
April 12th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
This tip does not work for me. I have a NForce 570 mobo, which as every NForce uses the snd_hda_intel driver for sound. But even by applying this patch the soundcard is completely mute… :’(
There’s a ticket about that at the following URL :
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/213206
If you encounter some trouble, you should really update this ticket since it should be considered as a showstopper for the release if it is quite widespread.
April 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I finally solved the issue by applying the following command :
sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils reset
April 26th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Thanks! This fix worked like a charm for my ALC883 in Ubuntu Hardy.
April 26th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I just upgrade to Ubuntu Hardy, and sound gone off. Then I installed alsamixergui, and I saw that sound is muted. It was not shown on console version of alsamixer. The problem is about mute at me, and it is solved now.
April 26th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
wo0t. Thanks for the fix, bro ^_^
April 27th, 2008 at 7:33 am
I’m getting to the step `sudo m-a prepare`, which gives the following output. Can I proceed with the next step from here?
Getting source for kernel version: 2.6.22-14-generic
apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Package linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic has no installation candidate
Creating symlink…
apt-get install build-essential
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
build-essential is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Done!
April 28th, 2008 at 7:35 am
i have Lenovo Y410, and since i install Linux I never hear any sound from the speaker also from head jack. my device is Alc262 and i add options snd-hda-intel index=0 model=benq with sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base at the end of this file, now i hear something from my speaker but still no sound from head jack. i wish some could help me fixes this sound probblem, i also did the way above and reboot but still no sound from my head jack. Pls help me i got no money to buy new laptop but still want to use Ubuntu Hardy.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
This is no surprise to me, sound breaking has been an issue for me since Gutsy, but I just did what I always did and rebuilt ALSA. Interesting to see this problem still affects people. Module Assistant certainly made the rebuilding process a lot easier
May 5th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
[...] Here is a blog which suggests how to remedy the problem and here is the Ubuntu Wiki link on PulseAudio. [...]
May 5th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
[...] sound for your applications where ALSA is the underlying layer that interacts with your sound card. Here is a blog which suggests how to remedy the problem and here is the Ubuntu Wiki link on [...]
May 8th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Well, I followed your codes, rebooted, and still no sound. I’m running a Dell Dimension 2300. I had no sound on 7.04, regained it in 7.10, and not have lost it in 8.04. It is frustrating. Each time I upgrade I anticipate that something isn’t going to work but alwasy cross my fingers. Everything on this upgrade works except sound.
May 10th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Thank you so much - it worked like a charm. I spent hours trying to fix the sound after I upgraded to Gutsy and I about pulled my hair out when the sound went out after upgrading to Hardy. You are awesome!
May 16th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Thank you Kevin! You saved my evening
May 17th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Thanks! I followed the instructions in the OP and I now have sound again in my newly hardy-upgraded ubuntu.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Thanks you for the info. Life is better when you have music to drown out annoying people
May 21st, 2008 at 4:42 am
Worked like a charm!
Thanx
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I’ve been wrestling with this for a few days. Thank you very much for your easy to apply solution. I knew it was something to do with the alsa modules but had no idea how to go about it. I thought at first it was a hardware issue as the sound worked. It stopped, curiously enough, after I hooked up a PATA hard disk drive. Unplugging it did not help. Very weird and possibly coincidental. Thanks again.
June 19th, 2008 at 2:11 am
You don’t need to reboot. After issuing the above commands, Run:
sudo alsa force-unload
sudo modprobe snd-hda-intel
I got my alc660 working using moduleassistant… I just wonder why they are taking so long to fix these issues.
June 19th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Man oh man….. where were u all this time…..!!! Now my sound in works perfectly welllllllll….. g8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! using compaq pressario V3000
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 am
I tried the shortest of the above fixes and it worked like a charm on my Presario v6000.
sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils reset
Many many thanks
June 25th, 2008 at 11:23 am
The command sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils reset fixed my sound problem, thanks a bunch. I have Hardy and I had no sound. I’m 60 years old and love Ubuntu, no more windows for me!
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:19 am
Fantastic! Works!
/etc/init.d/alsa-utils
Notebook Compaq presario v2000 Ubuntu 8.04 kernel 2.6.24-19-386 with Virtual-box-ose
August 7th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
You can type the following: /sbin/alsa force-reload
it does also the clean up of the modules and loads them again:
August 11th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Thank you. That fixed my sound troubles in Hardy.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Worked for me too with a ALC660.
Needed to reboot though.
August 18th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
i just ran it but couldn’t select alsa, but only alsa-source? is it ok to go?
September 6th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Got mine working too, been fighting with it on and off for nearly 6 weeks. I am happy, thank you very much!
September 20th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
I have had several issues over the last few years with Ubuntu. The main reason is that I have not put a disk in my drive since Dapper, and network upgraded to Hardy in succession. I had issues with partial installs, USB loss, and now sound (Pulse related). I have found a simple solution that has worked around most of my problems. I never remove old kernels. I know that this is not always recommended, but in a pinch. it has always worked. To go from Fiesty to Gutsy, to Hardy, I always used an older kernel for the upgrade, and did not remove old packages when they said they were not needed (I have always found a need for them anyway.
In the Pulse audio problems, I have reverted to my generic 2.6.24-19 kernel, and sound works fine. The non generic kernel never has played nice with Pulse Audio, so I refuse to boot into it unless need be (no reason found yet).
If you have already removed your older kernel through upgrade, I am sorry.
I have found that most problems are resolved after two kernel upgrades, so I continue to upgrade to major releases, but keep the old kernel untill a third comes out, and then move up one.
It is nice that they auto remove unneeded packages to save space, but the old adage “be careful when deleting” has proved very useful in community editions of OS’s
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Initially tried
sudo apt-get install module-assistant
sudo m-a update
sudo m-a prepare
sudo m-a a-i alsa
This did not work…i guess this was initialising stuff.
but then command
sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils reset
worked all fine!!
Thanks