Poor Quality Sound when running Puppy [Sort-of Solved]

[ozboomer]

Hi, all...

I recently acquired a used DELL Optiplex 9020 SFF desktop PC... and it's working well, under 64-bit Windows 10, as well as various Frugal installations of Puppy (Slacko Puppy 6.3.2 32-bit, XenialPup64 7.5 64-bit, Tahrpup64 6.0.5).

However, there's something not right with the sound when I'm using any of the Puppies, whether it's running a 'Frugally installed' Puppy (just using a 'savefile') OR if it's a 'clean' LiveUSB (or similar) boot.

With Windows, the sound coming from an external speaker system (connected through the standard 3.5mm stereo connector) is 'normal' with good sound, that's clear and 'even'.

...but when I'm running Puppy, the audio sounds like it's coming through speakers made of tinfoil.

I've used Puppy Linux in its various guises since the days of 1.08... but this is the first time I've had an issue with a difference in sound between Puppy and Windows (the Puppy is always sooo great)...

I assume there's some 'magic' audio driver that's installed with Windows that makes it all 'work'... but I don't know what/how to identify what needs to be done with Puppy to make the sound work properly.

I've attached a couple of sound samples from both Windows and Puppy for comparison... as well as the 'Audio' report from 'Puppy Sys Info' (XenialPup64 7.5), if that is any help. Sorry but the audio was just captured by sitting my phone in front of the speakers (!)

Thanks for any clues...

[ozsouth]

@ozboomer - a later kernel may help here, as your puppies are quite old & drivers often improve over time with newer versions. Your firmware may also be outdated. The 64bit kernel linked below (which needs fdrv linked there) is worth trying (just tested on xenialpup64-7.5 - fine):
viewtopic.php?p=50532&sid=d22ee6009d672 ... cdb#p50532

[mistfire]

Try QuickPup64

[ozboomer]

@ozboomer - a later kernel may help here, as your puppies are quite old & drivers often improve over time with newer versions. Your firmware may also be outdated. The 64bit kernel linked below (which needs fdrv linked there) is worth trying (just tested on xenialpup64-7.5 - fine):
viewtopic.php?p=50532&sid=d22ee6009d672 ... cdb#p50532

I tried going through the process described, ensuring I had the updated vmlinuz and zdrv_x.sfs file in-place, as well as adding the fdrv_*.sfs and while Puppy worked as usual, the sound was still 'tinny'.

As the computer works Ok for everything except sound, I'm loathe to go through a BIOS update (mainly 'coz I don't know how to save what's there now) with the risk of 'bricking' the now-working computer. However, the relevant portion of the DELL web site ( https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-au ... op/drivers ) does show there are 'critical' driver updates (only for Ubuntu 12.04)... so I wonder if it'd be worthwhile to try something with those files (which I'm totally unfamiliar with - a file listing of the driver download archive is attached)... if there's any way to know which files are important or not?

Try QuickPup64

About QuickPup64: viewtopic.php?t=3171&start=80

As I have a lot of data on this PC (that's not particularly easy to 'isolate' from the computer), I'm taking the warning about NTFS-storage being 'at risk' with this (self-described) 'bleeding edge' Puppy, I'm again, kind of loathe to experiment too wildly.

BTW.. I tried (Frugal) installing FossaPup64 just as something of a newer Puppy... and it behaved the same..

Still very appreciative of suggestions...

[ozsouth]

@ozboomer - I think you need to run the Multiple Sound Card option in the Setup/Alsa wizard menu. Your earlier text output shows multiple sound cards & some puppies pick the wrong one (Analog card should work best).

[williams2]

The pc speaker is a little buzzer on the mother board.

Is it possible that you have made the pc speaker the default sound card?

Typing in a terminal:

Code: Select all

lsmod | grep pcsp
pcspkr                 16384  0
shows that my machine has the pcspkr loaded.

You can unload the pcspkr module by typing (copy/paste) like this

Code: Select all

rmmod pcspkr

If that stops your sound, you were using the buzzer on the mother board for sound.

[mikewalsh]

@ozboomer :-

Mm. I tend to agree with Oz on this one; run the Multiple Sound Wizard, and make sure you set card hw:1 (PCH) as your default.

As stated above, the pcspeaker - the wee mobo 'buzzer' thingy - is not what you want (hw:2). And I wouldn't recommend the HDMI output either.....I don't think anybody's managed to get these properly functional under ANY Puppy (though I'm willing to be corrected on this one). It's almost certain that this card (hw:0) is pre-selected, since it's the first on the list in your Pups.

I've found there to be quite a variation in the way that newer Puppies recognise & 'present' the various outputs/channels in Retrovol. On my old Compaq desktop, in addition to 'Master' I only needed to ensure that 'PCM' was fully up on its slider. With this newer HP desktop, I not only need 'PCM' fully up, but I also need a second control - called 'Front' - to be fully up, too, before obtaining optimum sound levels. But this is where the afore-mentioned dichotomy creeps in; some Pups present 'Front' as an adjustable slider, whereas some very recent kernels present it merely as a tickable 'checkbox'.....and this is on the exact same hardware.

The modern iterations of the Linux kernel itself are beginning to make this even more of a minefield than it usually is.....despite the fact that, regardless of whether you have PulseAudio OR Pipewire, they ALL still run on top of ALSA itself. Doesn't matter what fancy sound management utility your distro is running, ALSA is always somewhere in the background. The current Linux kernel is a truly marvellous creation, but in some ways it's becoming a victim of its own success, as it has to support ever-increasing numbers of chipsets/drivers/devices.

(BTW - I wouldn't bother with those 'critical' driver updates for Ubuntu 12.04. These are now more than 10 years out of date.....and the Linux kernel has changed one hell of a lot over the last decade. You'll probably 'brick' the system anyway, due to overwriting some essential files that Puppy needs for correct functionality. Many Puppies may be BASED on Ubuntu.....but Ubuntu is NOT Puppy.)

Mike.

[ozboomer]

A quick addition (I was going to write a blurb on how I used the ALSA sound Wizard early in the peace to determine the hw:0 was the only usable option.. but that's redundant now)...

I collected and booted a LiveUSB of Ubuntu 22.10 on the PC ... and my, my, the sound was good as gold..

So, something in the 'Ubuntu lineage' can work with this hardware, it seems... but as mikewalsh writes,

Many Puppies may be BASED on Ubuntu.....but Ubuntu is NOT Puppy.

As I'm not very flash on the 'guts' of linux off the top of my head, the only thing I could glean from the terminal in Ubuntu Desktop was how the kernel identified itself:-

Code: Select all

ubuntu@ubuntu:$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu 5.19.0-21-generic #21-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Oct 12 18:33:17 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

...which seems to be newer than any of Puppy's kernels (I think?) ... if that gives us a path to further pursue... I should probably try lsmod or something, I guess... but would that give us any more info than the PupSysInfo report?

[ozsouth]

@ozboomer - I think we're comparing apples with oranges here. Ubuntu 22.10 is 6.5 years newer that Xenial & uses pulseaudio, as would windows 10. It may be that a modern puppy with pulseaudio is needed. That would be Fossapup 9.6, Vanilla Dpup 9.2 or maybe Jammypup 9.7b. (Slacko derivatives still use Alsa). As for kernels, I made some 6.0 ones in the last month or 2, but doubt that is the issue. I did earlier suggest changing your 5 yearold 4.9 kernel for a 1 yearold 5.4 one, as that COULD have made a difference though.

[ozboomer]

@ozboomer - I think we're comparing apples with oranges here. Ubuntu 22.10 is 6.5 years newer that Xenial & uses pulseaudio, as would windows 10.

Okie... I just now tried creating a LiveUSB with Ubuntu 16.04.7 (which I understand is used for Xenialpup64 7.5).. and again, the audio was fine with this LiveUSB... So, it's really seeming like there's something possible...

It may be that a modern puppy with pulseaudio is needed. That would be Fossapup 9.6, Vanilla Dpup 9.2 or maybe Jammypup 9.7b.

Okie.. I only tried Fossapup 9.5, which didn't make any difference... but there's still more to try...

I did earlier suggest changing your 5 yearold 4.9 kernel for a 1 yearold 5.4 one, as that COULD have made a difference though.

...which I did try ( see viewtopic.php?p=74765#p74765 ), with no joy (in the 'usual' xenialpup64 7.5.. but maybe I need to try it in Fossapup 9.5/9.6)...

It seems I still get befuddled by thinking Puppy is always going to be well-behaved on everything (which he generally is)...

...but it seems there's always a bit of fiddling required...

[ozsouth]

@ozboomer - Fossapup 9.6 uses pulseaudio (not 9.5 - that uses alsa). Note sure what Ubuntu xenial uses, tho' pulseaudio would not surprise. Beyond that, my pensioner brain is out of ideas, as the 'tinny' sound had me thinking pc speaker too.

[bigpup]

whatever program is actually playing the sound file.

Try the adjustments in it to see if anything changes.

I am using DeadBeef program and it has all kinds of options you can select.

Attach the original sound file so, we can hear it on our hardware and Puppy version.

[ozboomer]

Interestingly, the sound plays good-ho under Fossapup 9.6 through a normal Frugal installation... and QuickPup64 20.x BETA sounded tinny.

I've attached the original sample sound bite that was played to produce the original comparison sounds...

BT-IM-SELECTION.mp3

(329.08 KiB) Downloaded 39 times

[ozsouth]

@ozboomer - excellent - we have the answer - your system needs OS's with pulseaudio (i.e. Fossapup 9.6, any Ubuntu in last 6-7 years), as anything else gives you tinny sound.

[ozboomer]

@ozboomer - excellent - we have the answer - your system needs OS's with pulseaudio (i.e. Fossapup 9.6, any Ubuntu in last 6-7 years), as anything else gives you tinny sound.

So it would seem... but even that doesn't seem to be a 'guarantee' per se...

I ended-up testing a few Puppies in all of this:-

BionicPup64-8.0
Fossapup64-9.5
Fossapup64-9.6
QuickPup64-22.01
Slacko-6.3.2
TahrPup64-6.0.5
XenialPup64-7.5

...all of which (except for the 32-bit Slacko) are Ubuntu-based, 64-bit Puppies ( see https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/ )...

...and the only one that had 'non-tinny' sound was Fossapup64-9.6 ( see viewtopic.php?t=7234 ), which is still a Beta. As it was, I still had other things to modify or there were errors in startup with 9.6... but it's promising that this one will look like a working candidate for this silly PC once 9.6 is 'in release'.

BTW @bigpup ... I tried Deadbeef on a few of these installations... and running it with or without the 'apulse' (I think it is) wrapper still only produced 'tinny' sound.. although it does show a zillion output options (with the PCH Analog still being the only one that produces any sound).

So, I have a few options to run this PC as a 'silent Puppy' for now... Fanx!...

[ozsouth]

@ozboomer - I should have said Fossapup 9.6 & REAL Ubuntus (not pup derivatives). Pretty sure Jammypup 9.7b & Vanilla Dpup 9.2 also use pulseaudio.

[ozboomer]

Just to round this out for now, Jammypup 9.8 worked well.. and I sort-of lost interest(!) with VanillaDPup 9.2.28 (as he's very minimal and when I tried to install an mplayer, it looked like it had to build everything from scratch and I gave up after waiting for 20+ mins for all the downloads and things to happen).

I wonder if PulseAudio is something that has been packaged (as a .rpm, .tgz, .pet, .deb or .sfs or similar) that could be installed on any of the 'mainstream' puppies?

[Jasper]

@ozboomer

The source code is available here to compile:
https://freedesktop.org/software/pulsea ... s/?C=M;O=A

Available for Debian
https://packages.debian.org/stable/pulseaudio

[dimkr]

it had to build everything from scratch

Have you tried to install using Synaptic or apt (apt install mpv)?

[bigpup]

It would be best to pick a specific Puppy version to troubleshoot and give advice about.

Right click on the desktop tray speaker icon.
Select full window or mixer.
This should bring up all the option adjustments retrovol is using.

If you are using speakers.
Have headphone un-selected.

Look for anything else that adjustment may affect the sound quality.

[ozboomer]

@ozboomer - excellent - we have the answer - your system needs OS's with pulseaudio (i.e. Fossapup 9.6, any Ubuntu in last 6-7 years), as anything else gives you tinny sound.

[ . . . ]

...and the only one that had 'non-tinny' sound was Fossapup64-9.6 ( see viewtopic.php?t=7234 ),

I'm revisiting this after some explorations with F96-CE on a new PC ...

Back when I was trying to suss-out the sound problems on this PC, I set-up the F96-CE files on the PC's hard disk... and when I boot into that path, the sound is good... but when I unpacked the F96-CE .iso onto a USB flash drive and boot from THAT, the sound is tinny, even though we're talking about the same distro.

Now, what I've done before is to do a 'find' on a path where there are 'relevant' files and then do a 'diff' on the two file lists to see what files might've changed or are different.

As I'm not really that familiar with PulseAudio (or ALSA, for that matter), can anyone suggest what paths I might compare to try and work out what settings are making one installation work properly and the other not?

'tis always sooo much to learn....(!)

Thanks a heap...

[Jasper]

@ozboomer

As you are using Fossa96-CE, which is also the base for F96CE_XFCE_FUSILLI 4.4.

There is a solution to run PulseAudio as root provided on the forum here:

viewtopic.php?p=88262#p88262

It's not really an answer to your immediate question, but it might be useful to know

Good luck

[bigpup]

but when I unpacked the F96-CE .iso onto a USB flash drive and boot from THAT, the sound is tinny

Well, this is a new issue, I have never seen posted about.

A few questions to answer that may provide a clue.

What format is the USB partition, you put the ISO files on?

You did put all the files in the ISO on the USB?

Have you tried to use the USB install, with the USB drive plugged into a different USB port, of the computer?

Is the USB port USB 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0?

When booting with the USB install and see the boot menu. Are you selecting the first entry, that should be a normal boot?

[ozboomer]

I've been mucking about with Linux (and Unix) for 30 years or something (in a minor way, really).. and Puppy for nearly 20... and I'm blowed if I'll ever understand how sound works under linux...

Last night, I created a copy of the F96-CE .4fs savefile that works with 'good sound' that was stored in the hard disk of a given PC (called fossapup64save-GOODSOUND.4fs). I also created a copy of the 'vanilla' F96-CE .4fs savefile already created on the USB flash drive that I'm using to try and sort out all of this (called fossapup64save-POORSOUND.4fs).

I cold-booted F96-CE on the USB flash drive through the BIOS boot mechanism, loading the 'GOODSOUND' savefile and played a video using mpv... and confirmed the sound was 'good'.

I did the same again, loading the 'POORSOUND' savefile and played the same video using mpv... and confirmed the sound was 'poor'. I shutdown the PC without saving the changes.

I repeated both of these again but using the 'UEFI' boot mechanism and again confirmed the 'good' and 'poor' sound... and again didn't save changes when shutting-down.

...

A bit earlier this afternoon, I went through the same processes (4x cold boots) and the 'good' and 'poor' sound was reversed. I went through the cold boots and did it all again... and then the 'good' and 'poor' sound was inconsistent.

How can you track down weird behaviours when they're not reproducible? The only 'consistent' thing with these Puppies is that I'm using F96-CE... as I don't have this trouble with the Fossa64 9.5... or Xenial64 7.5... or all the other variants I regularly use... but then, those Puppies only produce 'poor' sound ... or none at all...

'It's all rather confusing, really'... only more so...

[amethyst]

I've been mucking about with Linux (and Unix) for 30 years or something (in a minor way, really).. and Puppy for nearly 20... and I'm blowed if I'll ever understand how sound works under linux...

Last night, I created a copy of the F96-CE .4fs savefile that works with 'good sound' that was stored in the hard disk of a given PC (called fossapup64save-GOODSOUND.4fs). I also created a copy of the 'vanilla' F96-CE .4fs savefile already created on the USB flash drive that I'm using to try and sort out all of this (called fossapup64save-POORSOUND.4fs).

I cold-booted F96-CE on the USB flash drive through the BIOS boot mechanism, loading the 'GOODSOUND' savefile and played a video using mpv... and confirmed the sound was 'good'.

I did the same again, loading the 'POORSOUND' savefile and played the same video using mpv... and confirmed the sound was 'poor'. I shutdown the PC without saving the changes.

I repeated both of these again but using the 'UEFI' boot mechanism and again confirmed the 'good' and 'poor' sound... and again didn't save changes when shutting-down.

...

A bit earlier this afternoon, I went through the same processes (4x cold boots) and the 'good' and 'poor' sound was reversed. I went through the cold boots and did it all again... and then the 'good' and 'poor' sound was inconsistent.

How can you track down weird behaviours when they're not reproducible? The only 'consistent' thing with these Puppies is that I'm using F96-CE... as I don't have this trouble with the Fossa64 9.5... or Xenial64 7.5... or all the other variants I regularly use... but then, those Puppies only produce 'poor' sound ... or none at all...

'It's all rather confusing, really'... only more so...

Could this be equalizer related (either on or off)? F96-CE have paulseaudio and have pulseaudioequalizer. I haven't experienced your problem but did put some time in to save my own presets. Perhaps save one of your own presets and see if it addresses the problem. Also check under output devices in Pulseaudio Volume Control if the equalizer is activated after boot.

[wizard]

@ozboomer

You might save yourself time and trouble by using a cheap sound card and disabling the interrnal sound in bios.

wizard

[ozboomer]

You might save yourself time and trouble by using a cheap sound card and disabling the interrnal sound in bios.

Heh.. Did exactly that earlier in the year, before I started all this PuppySurfing(tm)...

Trying it out again now.. and yup, it at least makes the sound consistent ('good') through the various boots of the Fossa-derived Puppies... but I'll keep exploring the other Puppies (and Windoze)... so Fanx! for reminding me...

[mikewalsh]

@ozboomer :-

I confess, mate, I'm somewhat mystified by this whole saga!

I'm currently IN Xenialpup64 7.5, running on a 16-yr old Dell Latitude D630 - with the original k4.9.58, and using good old ALSA! - and your 'reference' sound-bite from Iron Man sounds absolutely fine to me. Playing it in DeaDBeeF-portable, and listening to it through a USB Logitech H340 headset (which admittedly, does have its own built-in sound-card). BUT; even so, this is still pure ALSA, all the way. (I've always preferred DeaDBeeF, because it has an absolutely brilliant graphic equalizer.....and despite folks like amethyst insisting that Windows sound quality is superior, I don't ever remember Windows audio sounding any better. Perhaps I just have peculiar hearing.....)

I've used Dells of various stripes for years.....and I don't think I've ever heard of a Dell having issues with audio like this. I've also never heard that Windows uses PulseAudio before now, either.....There's a first time for everything, of course.

(*shrug...*)

Mike.

[wizard]

@mikewalsh
@ozboomer

There are a number of post on the web about this particular Dell model have poor sound issues. Could just be a flakey chipset.

wizard

[ozboomer]

There are a number of post on the web about this particular Dell model have poor sound issues. Could just be a flakey chipset.

Quite right you are..

As well as finding those issues/articles before, I have also found that I think there may be issues with the power supply (which will affect everything to some degree) as adding any sort of (PCI/e) expansion card will cause 'random (mis-)effects' and the expansion card will not work... or work erratically.

Anyway, I now have a reliable, working solution by going 'off-board' (and I've confirmed the sound works in all the OS environments)... So, maybe we're done with the problem (f'now)...

Fanx! again for everyone's help.