Capture controls in Alsamixer locked to zero

[kjellinux]

I have an IBM ThinkPad 600X on which I have installed Debian based antiX 23.1. Initially, the system could not find any driver for the audio device.

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Audio:
  Device-1: Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24/30 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio
    Accelerator] vendor: IBM ThinkPad 600X/A20m driver: N/A bus-ID: 00:06.0
    chip-ID: 1013:6003 class-ID: 0401
  API: ALSA v: k5.10.197-antix.1-486-smp status: kernel-api with: apulse
    type: pulse-emulator
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.2.1 status: off with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: off 2: wireplumber status: off 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin

After following the instructions for Debian 8 "Jessie" in the Debian Wiki for snd-cs46xx, I now have an snd-cs46xx driver.

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Audio:
  Device-1: Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24/30 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio
    Accelerator] vendor: IBM ThinkPad 600X/A20m driver: snd_cs46xx v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:06.0 chip-ID: 1013:6003 class-ID: 0401
  API: ALSA v: k4.19.276-antix.2-486-smp status: kernel-api with: apulse
    type: pulse-emulator
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.3 status: off with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: off 2: wireplumber status: off 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin

All should be well, but for some reason the Capture controls for Line, CD, Mic, Video, Phone and Aux are locked to zero and will not change no matter what I do. If I try to open Alsamixer from the terminal with

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alsamixer

I get an error message saying "Host computer is down". After advice from a member of the antiX forum, I managed to open the Alsamixer using

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alsamixer -c 0

In Alsamixer All controls can be toggled and adjusted except for the Capture controls mentioned above. They are locked to zero and will not change no matter what I try to do. After advice from several experienced members of the forum I also tried swithcing from a 5.10 kernel to a 4.19 kernel, but that did not help.

Now I'm hoping that someone here in the Debian User Forums can point me in the right direction so that I can find out what's causing the Capture controls to lock to zero, and how to unlock them.

[sunrat]

Debian derivative issues such as for antiX are handled in our Off-Topic subforum as they are not pure Debian. Topic moved.

I didn't think antiX used Pipewire by default. Maybe you should return it to its original audio status which is Pulseaudio IIRC. Using it with apulse may be messing it up completely. Also this looks wrong:

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1: pipewire-pulse status: off 2: wireplumber status: off

antiX also doesn't use systemd so it would make for another major difference for which we average Debian users may not be able to help.

[kjellinux]

... we average Debian users may not be able to help.

@sunrat you already helped. I now have several leads to follow.

[kjellinux]

After extensive testing and trial and error, it turned out only two things were needed to get the sound working. First, the driver needed to be fixed, as described above. Second, PipeWire needed to be turned on. After these two were done, the sound worked without any problems.