BACKGROUND:

The audio functionality of any computer system belongs to the very basic functions of a PC and OS. No sound, poor sound, limited functionality – No use for such a system!

The main idea behind upgrading ALSA with attached script is to make Linux available to a slightly wider community.

The script bridges the huge delay (up to a year) of Alsa updates supplied through the official channels.
By running the upgrade you’ll have a much bigger chance to get your soundcard working or problems resolved.

The script installs the latest official stable ALSA release. (optional the even more up 2 date driver snapshot will be installed)

Upgraded packages

Alsa 1.0.23 (stabil)

See: Changelog Alsa 1.0.23 

DRIVER=alsa-driver-1.0.23
FIRMWARE=alsa-firmware-1.0.23
LIB=alsa-lib-1.0.23
PLUGINS=alsa-plugins-1.0.23
UTILS=alsa-utils-1.0.23
TOOLS=alsa-tools-1.0.23
OSS=alsa-oss-1.0.17

Supported kernels: 2.6.24/26/27/28/29/30/31/32 family (including rt-kernel & NON-Ubuntu ZEN-rt-kernel)

Note: The restore currently does not not work on custom kernels!

UPGRADE:

The script is not in line with Debian/Ubuntu rules for package handling. It just overwrites existing files.
You won’t see any changes on the ALSA package-ids within Synaptic!

The script recognizes severe problems during the installation and will stop automatically. It shouldn’t mess up your setup.
If the script stops with an error-message nothing should have been touched!

In the worst case scenario the -r restore option restores your old system status as good as possible. It’ll reinstall kernel, kernel-headers and Alsa related packages.

Ubuntu upgrades/updates might overwrite your Alsa installation once in a while (e.g. Major upgrades, kernel-upgrades or ALSA-package upgrades).
You just need to rerun the upgrade-script using the -i option in this case (if you still have the compiled sources on the disk).

Disclaimer: I won’t take any responsibility for mess-ups caused by using the script! — Of course – I do my best to avoid these and support you as much as I can.

As usual – Make a backup first! – A restore will just take 5 minutes with rsync. That might save you hours of troubleshooting and frustration  .

Please consider that I rely on your support to improve the script and really appreciate your involvement.

Short Alsa-Upgrade script install instructions:

1. download the script and save it somewhere
2. cd
3. tar xvf AlsaUpgrade-1.0.23-2.tar
4. sudo ./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.23-2.sh -d
5. sudo ./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.23-2.sh -c
6. sudo ./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.23-2.sh -i
7. sudo shutdown -r 0

Logging: I recommend to log all the upgrade steps, e.g.

script -a -c “./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.23-2.sh -d” /tmp/Alsa_1.0.23-2_upgrade_download.log

You’ll find a log file /tmp/Alsa_1.0.23-2_upgrade_download.log as soon as the script is finished.
You need to run this procedure for every single step. Choose whatever logfile names.

Test and Troubleshooting

After reboot you can type:

cat /proc/asound/version

This will let you know if you’re running the new version.

The easiest and most reliable test to verify if Alsa is working is “aplay” – the Alsa player application. If aplay won’t work — nothing else will work.

Make sure that all your channels are unmuted and volume is up!

Type in a terminal:
$ aplay -l
(This won’t work on e.g. webcams with a microphone only. Here you need to do a $cat /proc/asound/cards to see if it is there”

If you see your soundcards, you’re almost there.

To test your first (default-index 0 X=0) soundcard, type e.g.:
$ aplay -Dplughw:X,0 -fcd //.wav
or e.g.
$ speaker-test -Dplughw:X,0 -c2
replace the X with the index of your soundcard index , which you find out by typing “aplay -l” – look for “card X”

Multichannel you can test the following way:
1. Type $aplay -L to find out about your pcm device . e.g “surround51”
2. Type $speaker-test -D surround51 -c6
Note: If the channel mapping should be wrong you need to adjust it in .asoundrc

Before reporting “NO SOUND” problems – check if your alsamixer-channels are activated and unmuted (gnome-mixer/volume-control/preferences)!!
Very often there are headphone-jack, Toslink, SPDIF or microphone issues reported. Usually this has something to do with wrong alsamixer settings or more seldom with a wrong model-id assigned to your sound-driver in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf .
If you’re lacking certain controls in alsamixer or your driver is not even being loaded, you should check-out your model-id in attached HD-Audio-Models.txt.
I strongly recommend to try similar model-id’s matching your codec to checkout if your faulty function gets working.
I’d guess 80% of the reported problems (group: other than alsamixer issues) over here are related to the model setting in alsa-base.

Howto:
1. sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

2. Look for:
options snd-hda-intel index=-2
3. Lookup your model in HD-Audio-Models.txt and change entry accordingly:
options snd-hda-intel index=-2 model=XXXXX
4. Save & Exit & Reboot

Please also have a look at these sides for further help:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=843012
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting

To avoid spaming the ALSA mailing list with problems, I strongly recommend to install the very latest driver snapshots taken from the source tree. There’ll be a slight chance that issues might be resolved already.

Use the -s option of the upgrade script to get the latest driver snapshot installed.

(NOTE: The snapshot is neither an official driver release nor an official pre-release or release-candidate – however, it reflects an “approved” status by the Alsa main developers. Therefore you don’t risk much to install it.)

Alsa provides alsa-info.sh. It is a shell script collecting all kind of data related to the audio environment. The Alsa designers will ask for the log in case we encounter rather severe problems. However before sending the stuff to Alsa the upgrade script should have been run with the -s function. The problem you’re running into might be already resolved in the latest drivers snapshot.

Download alsa-info.tar first

$ tar xvvf alsa-info.tar
$ sudo alsa-info.sh –no-upload

You can attach the log-file here or you send the output to the ALSA mailing list.
This way you also actively contribute to ALSA quality improvements.

To make troubleshooting over here a bit more efficient, report:

1. Name your Ubuntu revision
2. Kernel revision
3. Alsa revision
4. Upgrade script revision
5. A bit of background what you’ve done resp. done before
6. Attach the relevant logs