Fedora 13: Fixing sound and video for the Lenovo G555

It helps with my friend's Toshiba L645D too which has a different Conexant model. I also install the package "alsa-firmware" to support additional soundcards.

ATI/AMD and their hardware allies should work with linux developer more on drivers for out-of-the-box compatibility. Even in Windows I had to hunt for drivers on Google to get all his laptop hardwares working.

Generally with Dell computers its audio and video (compiz) works out of the box due integrated Intel hardwares. I know Intel is monopoly, but it leaves me no choice as aconsumer to buy their hardwares until competition embrace linux more or opensource their drivers.

While the fix works - you can mute the speakers when plugging in headphones, the ALSA profile changes somewhat; there are fewer choices in ALSAmixer, but everything basically works, and I can use Skype with the built-in sound card (though I recommend a USB headset with a "known good" sound chip). I just needed to be able to do audio editing without annoying my co-workers due to the lack of muting speakers.

Luckily this fix is easier in Fedora 14 and Ubuntu 10.10. The kernels in those releases have ALSA 1.0.23 drivers (as opposed to the ALSA 1.0.21 driver in Fedora 13 kernels despite 1.0.23 ALSA outside the kernel), and you don't have to add any packages to get a "full" ALSA 1.0.23, after which creating/adding-to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf generally enables muting of the speaker when headphones are plugged in.

I'd LOVE to be able to replicate this result in BSD (either Free- or Open-); it has something to do with telling the system what to do when various pins in the headphone jack are engaged.

That this speaker muting isn't the default in all FOSS systems is pretty much a fail. It's too hacky for civilians.

A company called Linuxant http://www.linuxant.com/alsa-driver/ has a driver, but it hasn't kept up with the post-Ubuntu 9.04/Fedora 11 world.