@GardZock :-
Hmm....
Y'know, although you said:-
....that's not technically true.
I was thinking along the lines of firmware here - not drivers; you need to have both for any hardware item to work - but according to you, by using the basic
arecord &
aplay you have managed to record audio AND been able to hear it play back. So, strictly speaking it IS functional.
USB is a standard, ever-present kernel driver module, so I doubt that's the issue. And if the kernel-level ALSA stuff is functioning - successful usage of arecord & aplay would seem to indicate this - then the basic audio-hardware/ALSA kernel module framework is in place AND functioning.
So, to recap:-
- The kernel-level USB driver is obviously present
- Firmware must be present, too, or else it wouldn't respond in any way at all; this is all down to the specific chipset in use by the microphone
- With usage of arecord & aplay you're able to get a usable output that will play back, so...
- ...strictly speaking, the microphone IS working.
And thus we come back to the PA/Pipewire "sound server" stuff.
Despite using Linux for over a decade - almost all of that time with "Puppy" Linux - I have next to no experience with PA OR Pipewire. Puppy, being designed to keep old hardware functional & useful, is - and always has been - a basic ALSA-only system.
Some of our devs are only now starting to employ PA in certain current mainstream Puppy releases, and it's been available in a number of individual members' re-mastered 'Puplets' for a while. Pipewire is beginning to get a look-in.....but me, I still prefer good old ALSA. I hated PA in Ubuntu during my early distro-hopping days, and was glad to see the back of it when I switched to Puppy back in late 2014.
All of which means that others are better-placed to help with PA or Pipewire.
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@Alexzee :-
I think "i915" is a red-herring in this respect, mate. This is the Intel GPU driver, and would be loaded anyway due to auto-detection of the UHD on-die graphics in the core i5 CPU during boot.
I run an Intel CPU with on-die UHD graphics, but use the output of my nVidia discrete GPU. Admittedly, with a desktop it's far simpler to indicate to the system which GPU you're using, since it's all down to which output socket you physically plug your monitor into.....the system one (from the on-die GPU), or the discrete one (from the GPU in the PCI-e slot).
Only by installing an official nVidia driver would the i915 output be overridden, since blacklisting of the kernel 'nouveau' module is required to allow the nVidia stuff to work anyway.
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Since this is all internal with a laptop, I've no idea how you differentiate between the two. I've got this issue with the current reconditioned Dell Latitude to some extent, though not like with the old Latitude. With the D630, the Core2Duo had no on-die GPU, and the nVidia mobile GPU was the only one available. With the E6430, although again an nVidia mobile GPU is present, there's also the on-die GPU in the Core i5-3340m.....and under those circumstances, Puppy will always default to the Intel driver, since those are always present in every Linux kernel.
BUT; if the nVidia HDMI audio outputs are being mentioned, to me this would indicate a conflict between ALSA and the nVidia GPU's audio processor. Unfortunately, trouble-shooting THAT is way beyond my pay-grade.....and for me is irrelevant anyway, since I have fully-functioning audio on both rigs.
Personally, I don't have the "incentive" here. Perhaps my ruminations might give you another possible angle to approach this from, though whether it'll result in a successful outcome is anybody's guess..!!
Mike.
forum.manjaro.org
unix.stackexchange.com
