The alsa driver snd-hda-intel is being updated rapidly. Not all flavors are detected correctly even in the development branch of alsa-driver. Most of this Howto is not specific to Ubuntu but rather to the kernel and alsa versions used.
Booting into linux
If your boot hangs on loading the module for snd-hda-intel, try disabling the card in your BIOS. It is called "HD Audio Controller", "Azalia Audio", or similar. Then try solving the problem using the instructions below.
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS
Many cards seem to work with Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, using the stock kernel 2.6.15 and alsa 1.0.10. This is not the case always, however. Reports include high pitched noise and not getting any sound at all. Sometimes sound disappears when touching volume controls.
To solve this, you can try two things:
Update to the latest version of alsa
- Install the required tools
sudo apt-get install build-essential ncurses-dev
- Install your kernel headers (replace 386 if you use another flavor)
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.15-25-386
Download and unpack the latest version of alsa from [http://www.alsa-project.org Alsa project] (driver, library, oss, and utils)
- Compile and install alsa-driver
./configure --with-oss=yes --with-cards=hda-intel make sudo make install
- Compile and install each of library, oss-lib, and utils
./configure make sudo make install
- Reboot
Note: You may need to right click on the volume control applet in your gnome-panel and go to the preferences and change the device to "HDA Intel (Alsa Mixer)". The same applies to the gnome volume control program. Additionally, you may also need enable some volume sliders through Edit-Preferences in gnome volume control.
Manually tell the driver which flavor you are using
- Edit the file /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
- Add the line "options snd-hda-intel model=3stack" (change "3stack" to the model you need)
3stack works for many motherboard integrated chips with shared surrounds. Other models include 5stack, 6stack, laptop and laptop-eapd. The full list is available in ALSA-Configuration.txt in the driver tarball under alsa-kernel/Documentation/. If this worked, you can help the alsa developers by sending them the output of lspci -nv and the model you used on [http://bugtrack.alsa-project.org Alsa BTS].
Ubuntu 5.04 and 5.10
Because of the rapid development of the snd-hda-intel driver up until now, problems with hda-codec based soundcards are more prominent in these versions of Ubuntu. To solve this, upgrade to 6.06 LTS or follow the above instructions but replace your kernel versions to 2.6.10-5 (Ubuntu 5.04) and 2.6.12-10 (Ubuntu 5.10) respectively.
Alternative for Ubuntu 5.10: Use a different driver
Some success has been reported with this, though outdated, driver: [http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dlhd-2.aspx?lineid=2004052&famid=2004052&series=2004061&Software=True&title=HD%20Audio%20CODECs#2004061Unix%20(Linux)]
Alternative for Ubuntu 5.04: Install from universe
How to install Intel High Definition Audio using "alsa-source" from universe
Here are the steps:
(The # means you should do this as root, so either use the root-console or "$ sudo su -")
# apt-get install alsa-source # apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.10-5-686 # apt-get install kernel-package ## installs make-kpkg # apt-get install ncurses-dev ## I am not sure if this is really needed $ less /usr/share/doc/alsa-source/README.Debian # dpkg-reconfigure alsa-source ## choose azx as driver # apt-get install fakeroot # cd /usr/src # tar jxf alsa-driver.tar.bz2 # cd linux-headers-2.6.10-5-686 # make-kpkg --rootcmd=fakeroot --append-to-version=-5-686 modules-image # cd .. # dpkg -i alsa-modules-2.6.10-5-686_1.0.8-4ubuntu4+10.00.Custom_i386.deb