How do I get useable sound with Linux and onboard Realtek card?

I have a Gateway DX4860 that I bought primarily for running VirtualBox VMs, to eventually replace one of my old hosts. I added a 1.5TB RAID6 array, and a decent rear fan. It's running Xubuntu 12.04 x64, and until yesterday I was very happy with it.

Now, after struggling for hours trying to get the mic to work, I'm extremely unhappy with it! I can play sound files, but there's no mic output. Actually, if I open "Sound Settings | Input", I see mic signal for a few seconds, and then the level indicator freezes. Sound Recorder records only noise.

The Web tells me that many people have had sound problems in both Ubuntu 12.04 and Xubuntu 12.04, perhaps because of changes in PulseAudio. Also, the machine has an onboard Realtek card (ALC662) and it's my general impression that such cards don't work well in Linux. I did install the latest generic Linux driver from the Realtek site, but that didn't fix the problem. If anything, it made it worse, in that Sound Recorder eventually froze the system, forcing a hard reset.

I really like the Debian text installer for partitioning (RAID, LUKS and LVM) so I'd like to stick with the Debian family. Would I likely have better luck with Debian Wheezy, instead of Ubuntu or Xubuntu?

If not, what other distro would likely work better with the Realtek card, and also give me good partitioning tools?

Alternately, would I be better off adding a good sound card? If so, which brands/models work best in Ubuntu or Xubuntu 12.04?

Thanks

Edit:

I've read that the Creative X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Pro card works.
But http://www.h-node.org/soundcards/catalogue/en shows the Asus Xonar STX as the only PCIe card that works!

 

you want something that work out of the box?

use Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

i tried Mint Debian couple weeks and wasted a few hours searching for help for sound that did not work with a Realtek soundboard.

in the end i re-installed something that works.

 

Yes

I do not want to learn the guts of Linux audio

Which release?

I've read that upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04 can break audio But that's different from a clean install.

What I know works are Ubuntu 10.n and 11.n, and this is a RAID/LUKS/LVM machine that I won't be upgrading in place

I've decided to get an Asus Xonar STX, and see how Ubuntu 12.04 works.

I'd try Mint, but I don't see a Debian text mode installer, which I want for doing RAID/LUKS/LVM

 

1st check your mic + plug you put mic switch on/off in ....etc ok or not ............

right click on sound icon sound preference go to mic increase volume and check other settings as well

also run command alsamixer and see if volume are down or not card selection etc lot of options you see there in gui mode

 

one thing to check out for is if someone has multiple soundcards.

in my old machine i had 3 soundcards, and on reboot the system would chose one card at random.

which was maddening because i had to enter commands via terminal to fix the situation.

 

Thanks, moontan. I'll be disabling the onboard "soundcard" before installing the new one

 

Thanks, mack_guy911. I've done those checks, and everything looks OK. Given that I have mic signal for 1-2 seconds in the mixer, I think that some component is hanging or crashing.

 

OK, I have success !!!

I disabled the onboard audio, and installed an Asus Xonar STX (PCIe).

I then installed Ubuntu 12.04.2 x64 with the alternate disk (for RAID/LUKS/LVM).

Initially, I had sound output through the headphones, but no signal from the mic. Everything looked OK in Sound Settings (via the speaker icon).

Opening alsamixer in Terminal, I saw that Mic and Mic Boost were both muted ("MM"). I highlighted each and hit "M", and then quit alsamixer. The mic works now

Maybe this would have worked with the onboard Realtek, but I'm not going to check

 

glad it resolve sorry i was on fuduntu live DVD by the time i made screenshots and i dont have mic to check but yes you are right alsamixer sound is muted thats the reason

good you start this thread and solve the problem

in future if someone need help it would be reference a great point


edit: F5 to get all option

and use left arrow key you scroll to end there mic options

 

Thanks again, moontan and mack_guy911

Off topic, I gotta admit that I am liking Ubuntu 12.04.2 a lot

But darn it, I really want the launcher at the bottom, and that seems impossible. I get Canonical's point about extra horizontal space on widescreen displays, but I've rotated my widescreen display 90 deg to fit with the other two displays

 

you can get unity bar at bottom as well but best thing you can do is hide it

by going to right click on screen properties (where you change your wallpapers)

on 2nd tab you see hide switch just on it


for getting it at bottom you need extra ppa i dont remember if it still work in 12.04

also you can do is hide unity bar and install docky cairo ....etc place it at bottom

like my pics sometimes i play with docky


https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=232753&page=40

 

maybe you could try Xubuntu.
you can put panels/launchers anywhere you want.

the new version of Ubuntu will be released on April 25.
one thing that could be of interest is that Canonical is also launching Gnomebuntu, an official spin of Ubuntu.

hopefully it will offer more of a traditional desktop experience than Unity...