Recently upgraded and migrated my home Linux desktop ( LinuxMint 19.1) to a relatively newer (Gen 3 Ryzen 7 which is on the way) AMD Ryzen 7 1700 based system in combination with the ASRock AB350M PRO4 MicroATX motherboard.
Once the system was built and loaded, went on to connect my old and faithful 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers Dell 5650 and guess what - NO SOUND !!!
Had to make few tweaks to get it working. The following are the steps:
-
Edit the file /etc/pulse/daemon.conf (will need need to sudo) to add the following line to the end to enable 5.1 surround sound:
default-sample-channels = 6
-
Reboot the system for the changes to take effect
-
Open a Terminal window and execute the following command:
$ alsamixer
This will pop open a curses-based text screen as shown in Fig.1 below:
Fig.1 -
Press the F6 key to select the desired sound card. This will pop open a screen as shown in Fig.2 below:
Fig.2Since have an analog based 5.1 surround sound speaker system, will choose the option 2 HD-Audio Generic.
-
The next screen that pops is the one as shown in Fig.3 below:
Fig.3Navigate to the option <Channel> using the left-arrow key. By default, will have only 2 channels enables as highlighted by the circle.
-
Use the up-arrow key to change the number of channels to 6 as shown in Fig.4 below:
Fig.4 -
Press the esc-key to exit from the screen. We will be back to the Terminal command-line. It is very IMPORTANT to execute the following command:
$ sudo alsactl store
This will persist the changes we just made to the file /var/lib/alsa/asound.state so is picked on the future reboots.
-
Next, execute the following commands to restart the PusleAudio system:
$ pulseaudio -k
$ pulseaudio --start
-
From the Control Center, click on the Sound icon to launch the Sound Preferences dialog as shown in Fig.5 below:
Fig.5Navigate to the Output tab and select the Analog Surround 5.1 option.
Exit the Sound Preferences dialog by clicking the Close button.
WALLA !!! Enjoy the rich audio through the 5.1 surround sound speakers.