Lenovo ideapad 3 sound not working with GNU Trisquel

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iceburn
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Iscritto: 12/07/2019

Lenovo Ideapad 3 151TLB

Originally had Win 11 and the sound worked but I don't like Windows so have installed TrisquelGNU Linux 11 Aramo from a disk, now the sound doesn't work.

I don't think the audio drivers have installed but that's a guess.

Secure boot has been turned off because it was advised on a Ubuntu forum.

What can be done to make the sound work ?

Thanks for any help.

Sally
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Iscritto: 04/07/2025

The rule of thumb is that in most scenarios, if some hardware piece doesn't work out of the box then it's probably because it requires proprietary code to work, something the kernel on Trisquel lacks by policy. Check if alsa and pulseaudio are installed, and see if alsamixer is installed, if it's not, install it with the alsa-utils package, if there's no audio output device showing there then it means the kernel doesn't have the needed software/drivers to manage it and therefore can't see it. Another thing you can do is check the output from "dmesg -Tl err" and see if the kernel reports something along the lines of "missing firmware" in red text.

If you want some audio output you might need to plug an USB to audio jack sound card that is plug and play, plenty of headsets ship with one of them nowadays.

TLDR: Wrong hardware to use with Trisquel GNU+Linux-libre, I'd be very surprised if other things such as 3D hardware rendering and WIFI work with a laptop this new.

Avron

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Iscritto: 08/18/2020

Can you indicate which CPU your machine has?

There was recently a discussion in the French language forum about 2 laptops with an Intel Tiger Lake or Alder Lake CPU that had no sound and the advice at https://trisquel.info/fr/forum/aucun-son#comment-179137 fixed the problem for both.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

Last week, we discussed the same problem on the French-speaking forum: https://trisquel.info/forum/aucun-son

Apparently, Intel expects users of their most recent processors to rely on a binary firmware that the company signs. The firmware is somewhat free because its source code hosted on https://github.com/thesofproject/sof is distributed under a free software license. However, without the Intel key to sign the produced binary, one cannot effectively use a modified version. It is tivoization: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/tivoization.html

The good news is that prospero actually found a way to get sound without the offending firmware. In a terminal:
$ printf 'blacklist snd_soc_avs\nblacklist snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl\n' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
$ printf 'options snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=1\n' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
$ sudo update-initramfs -u

After a reboot, the snd_hda_intel driver is loaded and functional. Can you try that and report whether it works for you too?

Prospero has filed https://gitlab.trisquel.org/trisquel/package-helpers/-/issues/203 and, hopefully, the workaround can become the default in Trisquel. Regardless, it would be good to better document what processors suffer from that problem (all the Intel processors since the 11th generation?), whether AMD processors have become a better choice because of that problem (do they now include working graphical chipsets?), etc.

(Observation: sure, older computers working with GNU Boot or Canoeboot are the best, but they are not a viable option for all use cases.)

prospero
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Iscritto: 05/20/2022

"Can you try that and report whether it works for you too?"

Note that the above has been confirmed to work with the latest linux-libre kernel (6.14) from the freesh repo. It would indeed be interesting to test it with the 6.8 version upgrade provided for Aramo, which will probably be the default kernel for Trisquel 12 Ecne.

https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/update-linux-libre-kernel

iceburn
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Iscritto: 12/07/2019

Hello, firstly I ran a quick check and think an upgrade may be needed.

'trisquel/aramo-updates 11.0-26 amd64 [upgradable from: 11.0-22]
N: There are 2 additional versions. Please use the '-a' switch to see them.
user@user-IdeaPad-3-15ITL6:~/Desktop$ '

Should this update be run and if so how ? What is an -a switch and how to write the commands in terminal ?

I got the numbers for the ideapad wrong, they are;
ideapad 3 15ITL6 Intel Pentium GOLD 7505 2.0 GHz, products formerly Tiger Lake.

This originally shipped with Win 10 in S mode
Retailer I purchased from upgraded to Win 11
I used my copy of Trisquel GNU Linux on disk to overwrite Windows.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

Hello, firstly I ran a quick check and think an upgrade may be needed.

What did you execute that showed you the message?

What is an -a switch and how to write the commands in terminal ?

Option -a is a "switch" if, on the command line, it requires no argument to alter the default behavior of the program you ran.

You can simply copy-paste the three commands I gave in a terminal emulator. The most efficient way to do so is by selecting the *whole* first line after "$" and by clicking the middle button of your mouse (or both buttons of your mouse/touchpad) after moving its cursor onto the terminal. Then type the Enter key. Repeat the operation for the next line and the one after.

Tiger Lake

It is Intel's 11th generation of processor, where the signed binary firmware apparently starts to be expected. I have a processor of the 10th generation and no such problem.

iceburn
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Iscritto: 12/07/2019

It worked! and now there's sound. Thankyou.

.
Magic Banana
'What did you execute that showed you the message?'

Sorry I don't remember where the commands where from. GitHub maybe ?

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

We should write a short manual. As prospero wrote, it would be interesting to see what version of the kernel you use. The following command executed in a terminal shows it:
$ uname -r

iceburn
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Iscritto: 12/07/2019

5.15.0-136-generic

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

The kernel you run is Trisquel 11's default. It starts to be quite old: 5.15 was released in 2021. It is good news: the workaround apparently work with any reasonably-recent Linux version. I wrote that short manual: https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/no-sound-intel-processor-11th-generation-or-more

andyprough
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Iscritto: 02/12/2015

I think that might just apply to non-corebooted systems. On corebooted systems, Intel sound on 12th generation chips works without any need for the user to configure anything in my experience. And that's whether your kernel is Trisquel's default 5.15.xx or if it's a newer 6.xx from Libre-linux. I'm currently running Linux-libre 6.14.1.

prospero
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Iscritto: 05/20/2022

You may want to check which audio module is actually loaded:

lspci -v | grep snd

If your provider deactivated ME for you, they hopefully also configured your system to work without it.

andyprough
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Iscritto: 02/12/2015

>"You may want to check which audio module is actually loaded"

$ lspci -v | grep snd
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_soc_avs, snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl

And I don't have snd_soc_avs or snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf | grep snd
# snd_intel8x0m can interfere with snd_intel8x0, doesn't seem to support much
blacklist snd_intel8x0m
blacklist snd_aw2
blacklist snd_pcsp

Should I assume that Coreboot is handling things? I have not touched the sound system at all on this laptop.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

And what is the output of the following command?
$ grep dsp /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
Maybe the line "options snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=1" in that file is the only important step and there is no need to blacklist anything. Although I authored the manual, I cannot test anything because I only have a 10th Gen processor. Sound has always worked with it (although "dsp" does not occur in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf). @anybody: feel free to correct the manual!

EDIT: the reason to blacklist the snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl module may actually be to not have Linux suggest the installation of the signed binary firmware, what goes against the Free System Distribution Guidelines. Indeed, in https://trisquel.info/forum/aucun-son both riquet607 and Avron showed that the dmesg command reported those lines, printed by the sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl module:
Check if you have 'sof-firmware' package installed.
Optionally it can be manually downloaded from:
https://github.com/thesofproject/sof-bin/

@andyprough: does your kernel suggest the installation of the signed firmware?

andyprough
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Iscritto: 02/12/2015

The command
grep dsp /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
gives no output.

I tried to grep dmesg for 'sof-firmware':
sudo dmesg | grep "sof-firmware"
but I get no output. Did I write that dmesg grep command correctly?

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

Thank you. I guess either you are right about coreboot making a difference or some Gen11+ do not use the signed firmware (if so, is there something on https://ark.intel.com giving that piece of information?).

andyprough
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Iscritto: 02/12/2015

>"is there something on https://ark.intel.com giving that piece of information?"

I do not know, that is a site with a huge amount of information. But for example, searching for the term "coreboot" only brings up one link that appears to have nothing to do with the question at hand. I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to find the answer you are looking for on that site.

Avron

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Iscritto: 08/18/2020

Just to confirm that, on another laptop (NovaCustom) with a 12th Gen Intel processor (i5-1240P) that the sound works immediately after installing Trisquel and snd_hda_intel is the driver used. It also has coreboot with deactivated ME (but it may not have any relationship to the sound being working by default).

prospero
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Iscritto: 05/20/2022

> snd_hda_intel is the driver used

Yes, snd_hda_intel is the driver to use, that much is quite clear. We now have a wiki to help users achieve that should it not be the case out of the box.

Else, there is nothing to fix. Good news!

prospero
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Iscritto: 05/20/2022

I would also have a look at the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="" line in /etc/default/grub, see if it has been modified to include something like:

snd-intel-dspcfg.dsp_driver=1

andyprough
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Iscritto: 02/12/2015

No, nothing like that:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text pci=noaer split_lock_detect=off"

I think most of what you and Magic Banana are talking about are changes that would be made after installing Trisquel, which, to my thinking, shouldn't have anything to do with Coreboot. This is a NovaCustom laptop which was delivered to my workplace by NovaCustom with Dasharo Coreboot already installed, that I then installed Trisquel 11 on once I received it brand new at work. As I said, sound just worked from the start.

I can ask about it on the NovaCustom support forum. Their people work closely with the Dasharo Coreboot people, they would probably be able to find an answer. Could either you or Magic Banana help me by suggesting the wording to the question I should be asking?

prospero
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Iscritto: 05/20/2022

This thread is indeed about troubleshooting audio not working out of the box after installing Trisquel.

Discussions about the benefits of using a corebooted device and disabling ME probably belong to the General Free Software Talk.

andyprough
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Iscritto: 02/12/2015

@Magic Banana - I think you have a typo in your first command on that wiki page:
avs\nblacklist
Pretty sure that you'll need a space between that \n & blacklist.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

I do not think there is a need for a space after the line break. Here is what sudo tee -a appends to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf:
$ printf 'blacklist snd_soc_avs\nblacklist snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl\n'
blacklist snd_soc_avs
blacklist snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl

andyprough
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Iscritto: 02/12/2015

Ok sounds great then.

iceburn
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Iscritto: 12/07/2019

ideapad 3

audio;

Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl

This still has the UEFI boot option so assume ME is still lurking. This is not a libre boot laptop.