Hi al, I just did a fresh install of linux mint and I don’t have any audio on my internal subwoofers. Dell XPS 9500. I made a post about it on the linux mint forums, which contains more info and “progress” but no luck so far.
I have already found and set my subwoofers to the internal speakers LFE via HDAJackRetask now I need to have them actually get a signal. I hope one of you amazing peeps is able to help me.
Edit:
Okay it has been a productive evening. So from reading this thread on bugzilla.kernel.org it seems that the subwoofers are working and actually are playing audio. The speaker fix seem to have been added somewhere before kernel 5.15 (This is for the 9500, which sets the same quirk as is set for the 9510.) What it currently looks like what the problem is that there is a high pass filter for the tweeters which also get applied to the subwoofers. Which means that the subwoofers are effectively producing no output even tough they are getting an input. I currently have no clue how to mitigate this. The bugzilla.kernel.org thread is really worth reading!
I had a similar problem with a DELL laptop that used to be a Chromebook (and I later installed Debian): no audio out of the speakers, OR if there was audio, it was in slow motion. I installed a gazillion of Debian distros, and nothing worked, except the Ubuntu-based ones, that DID work. Basically, it was a either a bug or missing feature on the older kernels that Debian-based distros used (ubuntu uses newer kernels). I had tried everything, and I mean, everything. Every alsa, pulse or pipewire trick, and nothing had worked, because ultimately, it was a kernel support issue. When Debian upgraded to kernel 6.1 recently, the issue was fixed by itself (well, 90% of the way, not completely). So if you’re not seeing any progress despite all the things you tried, it’s probably a kernel support issue, and you might have to wait for the next few kernels down the line to see fixes for it. Sometimes, it’s how it goes.
I did try using a live boot of fedora a few months ago (kernel 6+) but it didn’t work there
If multiple distro families don’t work, might be a case of the hardware not being supported yet.
I know it has been fixed in a kernel patch for the other 95x0 models and should be ready in some 6+ kernels but I’m not sure for the 9500