Sometimes after installing XFCE/Xubuntu along side Ubuntu LightDM the configuration for your present and active sound devices will get overwritten or removed. The first thing you should do is go to “Application Menu -> Multimedia -> Pulse Volume Control” Click the “Configuration” tab and check what audio devices it is listing. If it doesn’t display any skip to the section titled “Update”.
Check:
If it shows your sound devices click the “Output Devices” tab and make sure the sound device which should be outputting sound is not muted and that it has “Speakers” or “Headphones” in the “port” dropdown box which ever the case may be. Your sound should be functional now
Update:
If the “Configuration” tab doesn’t show any of your audio devices run the following commands from a terminal window.
killall pulseaudio; rm -r ~/.config/pulse/* ; rm -r ~/.pulse* If it says it couldn't remove the files in question it means pulse never created them when it was loaded.
Now run the following commands from terminal, once they have completed reboot your computer, once you are back in XFCE open “Pulse Volume Control” and follow the directions from the section titled Check.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev/ppa; sudo apt-get update;sudo apt-get dist-upgrade; sudo apt-get install pavucontrol linux-sound-base alsa-base alsa-utils lightdm ubuntu-desktop linux-image-`uname -r` libasound2; sudo apt-get -y –reinstall install linux-sound-base alsa-base alsa-utils lightdm ubuntu-desktop linux-image-`uname -r` libasound2; killall pulseaudio; rm -r ~/.pulse*; ubuntu-support-status; sudo usermod -aG `cat /etc/group | grep -e ‘^pulse:’ -e ‘^audio:’ -e ‘^pulse-access:’ -e ‘^pulse-rt:’ -e ‘^video:’ | awk -F: ‘{print $1}’ | tr ‘\n’ ‘,’ | sed ‘s:,$::g’` `whoami`
Johnny October 28th, 2013
Tags: active sound devices, audio devices, no sound, pulse, pulse audio, Pulse Volume Control, pulseaudio, sound, sound card, sound device, ubuntu 10, ubuntu 11, ubuntu 12, ubuntu xfce, xfce, xfce4
If your like me and are not a fan of the gui login screen that ubuntu uses or you want to reduce resource usage you can do the following to disable the gui login and rather use a console login instead.
echo "manual" | sudo tee -a /etc/init/lightdm.override
You can also do this with GDM
echo “manual” | sudo tee -a /etc/init/gdm.override
This prevents the desktop manager from loading it’s service, you will now either need to start lightdm manually or have a different window manager installed because with out lightdm being started unity will not work. You can restart lightdm by doing the following
sudo service lightdm start
I personally use XFCE rather than lightdm since it uses less resources, you can edit the ..xinitrc file in your home directory to change which window manager you are using. If you do not have another window manager installed please read Changing Window Managers, which will guide you through the installation process.
If the file .xinitrc is not in your home directory create the file and chmod +x .xinitrc
In the .xinitrc you will find a line like
#!/usr/bin/env bash exec xfce-se
You will change this to whichever window manager you would like to use.
I’ve listed a few available window manager
WM=gnome-session WM=startkde WM=afterstep WM=wmaker WM=enlightenment WM=blackbox WM=icewm
Once you have finished when you reboot you will be greeted with a text login prompt and can use startx to start your xsession.
No sound after rebooting into XFCE or other window manager read No Sound After Installing XFCE/Xubuntu
Johnny October 27th, 2013
Tags: gui, gui login, lightdm, login screen, startx, text login, Ubuntu, ubuntu 12, xfce, xsession
Using one of the many versions of Ubuntu but want to use a different window manager than the one it came with? This can be done quickly and easily by installing the window manager you wish to use and logging out and back in. Sound simple enough? It is.
To install your new window manager you can use the following commands through a terminal.
For LXDE
sudo apt-get install lxde
for XFCE
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
for Gnome
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
For KDE
sudo apt-get install kde-plasma-desktop
Once you install the one you want, log out, choose the one you want by clicking the icon next to your username, and log in.
No sound after rebooting into XFCE or other window manager read No Sound After Installing XFCE/Xubuntu
Johnny October 23rd, 2013
Posted In: How To
Tags: change window manager, Gnome, kde, Linux, sessions manager, Ubuntu, window manager, Window Managers, xfce