[gobolinux-users] bemoaning the lack of sound

[Isaac Dupree]

Isaac Dupree wrote:
> Jonas Karlsson wrote:
>> On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 19:15:39 +0100, Isaac Dupree <isaacdupree at charter.net> wrote:
>>
>>> and now testing the effect of headphones:
>>>
>>> when they're plugged in, no sound comes out of either the laptop's
>>> built-in speakers nor the headphones.  Is there somewhere I need to set
>>> plugged-in-speakers volume separately, or does it just not work yet? (or
>>> something else)
>>>
>> I have no macbook but an intel sound card and the speakers and headphone
>> jack is two different channels here. Use alsamixer (or kmix if you have
>> kde) to see all channels and their levels.
> 
> what are "channels"?  Are they the Front, Surround, Center, LFE, and 
> Side that I can see in alsamixer/kmix?

huh. in alsamixer I unmuted a bunch of those (after seeing 
http://alsa.opensrc.org/FAQ ), and now they make sound too (various 
kinds of sound, or coming from different areas of the laptop body, or 
something), and they have adjustable volume.  Front corresponds to the 
volume set with aumix -v 50.  There are also Line In as Output, Mic as 
Output, and IEC958, without bars, and unmuting them doesn't seem to have 
any effect (whether headphones are plugged in or not).

Wikipedia for IEC958 reveals it as a synonym for S/PDIF, but doesn't 
explain well enough what part of my hardware that is referring to or 
what it means

but I'm slowly becoming educated about this! very good!

What the heck??? I don't know what I did, but I just noticed that there 
is now a red glow coming out of the headphone jack in the computer, and 
the headphones have completely the expected behavior when plugging and 
unplugging!  Although I can't seem to find a way to mute the headphones. 
  Maybe having IEC958 unmuted for several minutes changed things (even 
though there is no effect if I mute it now for a few seconds)

Any idea what's going on?

Isaac