(NB I've just moved this post from the desktop forum room to here, which is a far more appropriate place for my question).
I'm wondering if someone has an idea where I should next look (or next read up on) regarding a different hardware behaviour between using the Debian Live and fully installed versions? In brief, my laptop microphone works fine when booting from a Debian 12 Live iso file, but not when booting from the installed version.
In full, I've used Debian since 8 (version 8, not 8 AM this morning ) but I changed my laptop in 2022 (to a Dell XPS 17 9700) and briefly ventured over to the dark side (LM Ubuntu) as that was the only way I could get the sound working (headphones never worked, though; plugging them in muted the speakers, but they never produced sound; I spent many a day down many a rabbit hole, but I got nowhere). Occasionally, after booting into W*****s 10 (and the updater installing new BIOS) the microphone stopped working, so I had to nip into the BIOS, disable, reboot, then re-enable the audio system, then the microphone worked again with LM.
So, a few days ago I tried booting from a USB containing the Debian 12 Live ISO (Cinnamon edition) and I was delighted to find that everything worked perfectly; the mic, the speakers, and for the first time ever, the headphones worked as well; absolutely fantastic!
I then performed a net install of Debian 12 (with home on a separate partition) and I elected to install both Cinnamon and Plasma. Everything is working well, but I just cannot get the microphone to work (I've tried disabling audio, rebooting, enabling audio, rebooting, but no joy).
I first tried a few obvious checks, then I booted off the Debian live USB (the mic worked) and performed the same tests, but when comparing the results they look identical, so I wonder if anyone could please drop me a hint on where to next investigate?
Firstly, below shows the initial tests performed with the laptop booted from a USB of the Debian Cinnamon Live ISO (which, apart from the additional entries in /etc/modprobe.d/, looks identical to the results from the actual installation).
Code: Select all
user@debian:~$ sudo dmesg | grep -iE 'snd|sof'
[ 0.023808] software IO TLB: area num 8.
[ 0.365425] PCI-DMA: Using software bounce buffering for IO (SWIOTLB)
[ 0.365425] software IO TLB: mapped [mem 0x00000000460c3000-0x000000004a0c3000] (64MB)
[ 0.752612] integrity: Loaded X.509 cert 'Microsoft Windows Production PCA 2011: a92902398e16c49778cd90f99e4f9ae17c55af53'
[ 0.752625] integrity: Loaded X.509 cert 'Microsoft Corporation UEFI CA 2011: 13adbf4309bd82709c8cd54f316ed522988a1bd4'
[ 4.894508] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
[ 8.245562] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI class/subclass/prog-if info 0x040100
[ 9.035885] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI class/subclass/prog-if info 0x040100
[ 9.035904] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[ 9.036013] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI class/subclass/prog-if 0x040100
[ 9.036089] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_audio_component_bind_ops [i915])
[ 9.043817] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: use msi interrupt mode
[ 9.069127] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: hda codecs found, mask 4
[ 9.121479] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: firmware: direct-loading firmware intel/sof/sof-cml.ri
[ 9.121489] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: Firmware info: version 2:2:0-57864
[ 9.121491] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: Firmware: ABI 3:22:1 Kernel ABI 3:23:0
[ 9.121499] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: unknown sof_ext_man header type 3 size 0x30
[ 9.269060] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: Firmware info: version 2:2:0-57864
[ 9.269064] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: Firmware: ABI 3:22:1 Kernel ABI 3:23:0
[ 9.301761] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: firmware: direct-loading firmware intel/sof-tplg/sof-cml-rt711-rt1308-rt715.tplg
[ 9.301775] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: Topology: ABI 3:22:1 Kernel ABI 3:23:0
[ 9.301981] sof_sdw sof_sdw: ASoC: Parent card not yet available, widget card binding deferred
[ 10.222843] input: sof-soundwire Headset Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sof_sdw/sound/card0/input19
[ 10.222892] input: sof-soundwire HDMI/DP,pcm=5 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sof_sdw/sound/card0/input20
[ 10.222920] input: sof-soundwire HDMI/DP,pcm=6 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sof_sdw/sound/card0/input21
[ 10.222948] input: sof-soundwire HDMI/DP,pcm=7 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sof_sdw/sound/card0/input22
user@debian:~$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sofsoundwire [sof-soundwire], device 1: Jack In (*) []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: sofsoundwire [sof-soundwire], device 4: Microphone (*) []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
user@debian:~$ pacmd list-sources
No PulseAudio daemon running, or not running as session daemon.
user@debian:~$ ls /etc/modprobe.d/
amd64-microcode-blacklist.conf ath9k_htc.conf dkms.conf intel-microcode-blacklist.conf mdadm.conf
user@debian:~$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/intel-microcode-blacklist.conf
# The microcode module attempts to apply a microcode update when
# it autoloads. This is not always safe, so we block it by default.
blacklist microcode
Below now shows these same tests when performed on the actual installation:
Code: Select all
****@dell:~$ sudo dmesg | grep -iE 'snd|sof'
[ 0.024263] software IO TLB: area num 8.
[ 0.361810] PCI-DMA: Using software bounce buffering for IO (SWIOTLB)
[ 0.361811] software IO TLB: mapped [mem 0x00000000460f9000-0x000000004a0f9000] (64MB)
[ 0.643723] integrity: Loaded X.509 cert 'Microsoft Windows Production PCA 2011: a92902398e16c49778cd90f99e4f9ae17c55af53'
[ 0.643733] integrity: Loaded X.509 cert 'Microsoft Corporation UEFI CA 2011: 13adbf4309bd82709c8cd54f316ed522988a1bd4'
[ 3.177413] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI class/subclass/prog-if info 0x040100
[ 3.414829] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI class/subclass/prog-if info 0x040100
[ 3.414849] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[ 3.415417] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI class/subclass/prog-if 0x040100
[ 3.415885] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_audio_component_bind_ops [i915])
[ 3.423529] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: use msi interrupt mode
[ 3.441667] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: hda codecs found, mask 4
[ 3.443419] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: firmware: direct-loading firmware intel/sof/sof-cml.ri
[ 3.443427] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: Firmware info: version 2:2:0-57864
[ 3.443429] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: Firmware: ABI 3:22:1 Kernel ABI 3:23:0
[ 3.443435] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: unknown sof_ext_man header type 3 size 0x30
[ 3.576964] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: Firmware info: version 2:2:0-57864
[ 3.576967] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: Firmware: ABI 3:22:1 Kernel ABI 3:23:0
[ 3.593746] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: firmware: direct-loading firmware intel/sof-tplg/sof-cml-rt711-rt1308-rt715.tplg
[ 3.593755] sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl 0000:00:1f.3: Topology: ABI 3:22:1 Kernel ABI 3:23:0
[ 3.594742] sof_sdw sof_sdw: ASoC: Parent card not yet available, widget card binding deferred
[ 4.070204] input: sof-soundwire Headset Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sof_sdw/sound/card0/input19
[ 4.070337] input: sof-soundwire HDMI/DP,pcm=5 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sof_sdw/sound/card0/input20
[ 4.070392] input: sof-soundwire HDMI/DP,pcm=6 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sof_sdw/sound/card0/input21
[ 4.070485] input: sof-soundwire HDMI/DP,pcm=7 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sof_sdw/sound/card0/input22
****@dell:~
$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sofsoundwire [sof-soundwire], device 1: Jack In (*) []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: sofsoundwire [sof-soundwire], device 4: Microphone (*) []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
****@dell:~
$ pacmd list-sources
No PulseAudio daemon running, or not running as session daemon.
installed@dell:~
$ ls /etc/modprobe.d/
intel-microcode-blacklist.conf
****@dell:~
$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/intel-microcode-blacklist.conf
# The microcode module attempts to apply a microcode update when
# it autoloads. This is not always safe, so we block it by default.
blacklist microcode
Using F4 then F6 to get the inputs mixer, again the live and installed versions are the same.
The big difference is that when opening the GUI sound settings, when I clap my hands the input bar-graph meter shows the peaks on the live version, but it doesn't budge when using the installed version. I did play about with all the alsamixer controls and the highlighted control (rt715 DIMC3 Boost) does change the microphone sensitivity, and as you can see it's set similarly on both screens.
I'm running out of ideas on what to look at or try next so any thoughts would be most welcome. I'll need to use the microphone in a few days time (for a Mumble audio meeting), so I can't get anywhere over this weekend, unfortunately I'll probably have to revert to the dark side (Ubuntu based LM - which I know does work with the microphone - or perhaps I'll try Kubunbu) just to get the microphone working again and that would be hyper-tedious in the extreme!
Briain