I am currently running Zorin OS 17.2 Core (kernel version 6.8.0-48-generic) on a Lenovo Yoga 7 14ARB7 (AMD Ryzen 5 6600U) with Secure Boot and LVM full-disk encryption using LUKS enabled (so recovering if nothing works anymore is a tiny bit more painful).
Everything works just like a charm - except for the speakers. The device has 4 speakers (Dolby Vision Atmos) which aren't correctly used by the operating system. Only the upper front speakers (for treble) are utilized, but the lower-bottom bass speakers are left untouched. This results in a very clingy, shallow sound. I have already tried different things to fix this issue, which all did not work:
tried PipeWire
tried deactivating Secure Boot, activating AMD PSP (even though I couldn't imagine how this would change anything)
tried re-configuring ALSA with alsamixer
Then I tried booting into Fedora from USB, which used kernel version 6.10 - and it worked, to my surprise! As I wouldn't like to completely reinstall my machine (it is in very active use for school and needs to be ready), I wondered if there is a safe and preferably revertable way to try out fixing this issue using a new kernel version. I know, this is an oxymoron. Sigh.
You could install PulseAudio Volume control. This is a Program to set up Audio Input and Output. You can install it with the Terminal Command sudo apt install pavucontrol
Another Option would be th install a newer Kernel. To install a newer Kernel this is in my Opinion a good Guide for:
It explains how You can install a newer Kernel manually over the Terminal and with the Help of a Tool called ''Mainline''. A good Video for it is this one. It explains how You can add the Repo from the Tool:
I have already tried using the PulseAudio Volume Control, however it didn't really help. All it offers me are the following settings, but they do not change much. I hoped to find different channeling/routing settings for ALSA over there, however they simply do not seem to exist.
I will definitely look into the kernel installation guide, though. It requires me to manually sign the kernel though, as I would like to keep Secure Boot enabled. This sounds quite tricky overall, so I probably will either try to do so as soon as I have some free time from school or simply switch to Silverblue (which would mean leaving Zorin - a pity! )
Thanks a lot for your help either way! I will keep the thread open in case someone who encountered a similar issue stumbles upon it.
attached to my SoundBlaster Audigy Rx 5.1/7.1 soundcard. Zorin by default only uses 2 speakers and incorrectly identifies the output coming from S/PDIF!
My solution was to install all ALSA packages via Synaptic Package Manager (including 'apulse' for when listening to streaming in Browser, but excluding OSS and JACK packages. I also install qastools which include:
QasConfig - browser for the ALSA configuration tree
QasHctl - mixer for ALSA's High level Control Interface
QasMixer - desktop mixer with features similar to alsamixer
Additionally I use Audacious, use ALSA plugin settings in Audacious, and Identify the correct output. Once Audacious is setup correctly all other Applications that use audio produce sound from all speakers.
)