It’s pretty ironic to have problems with audio not recognizing headphones… on WINDOWS.

Multi-trillion (10^12) dollar company, btw.

(Both laptops are reasonably new.)

  • NaibofTabrEnglish
    5·
    3 days ago

    Uh huh uh huh uh huh… call me when ALSAmixer is no longer needed to unmute the TOSLINK output on a new install because who the fuck knows why it’s muted by default in ALSA and that setting is not surfaced anywhere in the UI.

      • NaibofTabrEnglish
        2·
        23 hours ago

        Heh, so ALSA has kind of been the audio architecture for Linux distros since forever.

        Pulse Audio was supposed to modernize audio for Linux and ultimately replace ALSA.

        But last time I installed Linux on my desktop, I couldn’t get audio output from my motherboard’s TOSLINK S/PDIF port no matter which settings I changed in the GUI, uninstalled/reinstalled drivers and codecs and whatnot, etc.

        Nothing made any difference until I eventually found some forum post which suggested using ALSAmixer to check the settings for various audio channels. ALSAmixer is not typically installed by default and not commonly used anymore, but it was the only tool that could unmute the digital audio output channel that served the TOSLINK port - that functionality was not present anywhere else in any of the configuration options. Pulse appeared to be in control of the system audio hardware, but in reality it was just sitting on top of and still relying on ALSA to handle the back end. Also, whoever set ALSA to mute some audio channels by default on a clean install… wtf dude, that shit just makes people think their hardware isn’t properly supported and they have a driver issue.

        The point being, ALSA was supposed to be deprecated years ago and all of the old audio issues resolved and modernized with a new architecture, but… I’ll believe it when I see it, when whatever the new thing is actually proves itself to be an all-singing, all-dancing audio architecture. I’ve seen this rodeo before, and last time I checked it was still a clownshow.

    • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      I would make fun of you for using toslink but eARC is such a scam that I don’t know why they didn’t just bother to upgrade toslink anyway.

      I think they’re lying when they say it can’t handle the bandwidth. It’s a fricken fiber optic cable, just bump the transmitter.

      • NaibofTabrEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        So… what do you use for audio output on a desktop? Because I feed my monitor with the DisplayPort output from my graphics card, and I’m definitely not running a separate HDMI just for the audio signal. Even with 5.1 channel outputs, the 3.5mm audio on the motherboard is not up to the quality of the optical audio output, and besides that’s 5 copper cables to run instead of one fiber. My soundbar has an optical input. The optical output is the only thing that makes sense.

      • ShankShill@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        3 days ago

        I had a Samsung TV and Samsung home theater in a box as my first 4k setup. The last update to the TV broke eARC.

        Just wanted to throw out at every opportunity why I will not buy a Samsung anything.