No sound!!!!

[miriam_e]

What a relief! I was starting to panic. Sound had ceased to work in my computer. I've really needed a new computer for a while, but really can't afford one, and dreaded having to find the money (that is, borrow it) to buy one.

I keep several operating systems on my computer, so I booted into another one, to check. Gratifying surprise! The sound worked. So it was not a hardware problem... thank goodness.

So back to my preferred operating system. Why isn't sound working in it? I tried everything I could think of, but was reluctant to spend hours on the net searching, so I began with asking ChatGPT-4o if it had seen anything on the net about this particular problem. It spent a little while searching the net and came back with 8 suggestions gleaned from its search.

The first suggestion I'd already tried.

The second suggestion (to check that alsamixer was not muted) solved the problem. How it had got muted I have no idea, but now everything is okay again.

Whew! My relief is overwhelming. :(

Comments

[greylock]

To check that alsamixer was not muted) solved the problem. How it had got muted I have no idea, but now everything is okay again.

I had this (or a similar issue - it was a few years ago) on my work Windows laptop. It's a baffling one. I usually put it down to a bad update or mangling a mysterious hot key combo.

Of course, MSWord reset itself today (or reasons) and reset the bold key from CNTL-B to CNTL-N, Apparently it's a gremlin with yesterday's update they are "working hard to fix".

[miriam_e]

Sorry. I didn't receive notice you'd posted this (and other recent messages), or the notifications had slipped past me. Sorry about that.

I have similar problems with Samsung "updating" my phone and changing my settings. Very annoying. If I had the money, I'd get the new Fairphone open phone. I'll never go back to Microsoft on my main computer.

[greylock]

No stress.

I just came off a 20 minute phone rant about Windows 11 being diabolical.
I wouldn't use it, were it not for work, and it is evil.
Every time you 'fix' an issue there's an update (five this week, three W11 and two Office) and it 'helps' by reverting settings.

[miriam_e]

Yesterday I watched a very interesting video on how to detach Windows 11 from most of its spying activities so that it goes back to working like Windows 10 did, with a local account instead of turning your computer into a glorified dumb terminal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kzai1QVXQc

I was interested in this because I'll soon be visiting a friend who continues to use Microsoft Windows and is having no end of problems with his computer. He's asked if I can help fix his problems. I'll try to convince him to use Linux, but failing that I'll try to force Windows to behave. To that end I've downloaded the ISO disk image of Windows 11 from Microsoft and Rufus https://rufus.ie/en/ to make it installable from USB and eliminate the choice of the spyware variant Microsoft prefers. The steps given in the video... but I'd much prefer if I can install Linux for him. :)

[greylock]

I'll have to check that out, but I think, in addition to not having admin access, there's some software that sits between me and the work network I may not be able to get around.

(My old W10 latop was perfectly good, an only five-years-old, but went to eWaste. Infuriating).

There's almost no good reason not to at least try to Linux these days. The hurdles are minimal (hilariously, they're worse if you're a more advanced Windows user) and I think even the gaming hurdle is gone.

I've never been able to convince anyone to switch, but I've also never had a reason to do back to Windows at home in a decade? (I think there are some file recovery tools on Windows I needed way back, but that's it).