Hello,

I have just installed Debian Trixie on a Dell Precision 5860 workstation
that initially had Ubuntu on it. The installation went well but there
are two issues. This post is about the first of these.

I cannot get sound through the speakers in my monitors (I have two;
sound on either one would be fine) through HDMI. The system finds the appropriate sinks:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
$ uname -a
Linux dt2025 6.12.69+deb13-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.12.69-1 (2026-02-08) x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ pactl list sinks
Sink #56
State: SUSPENDED
Name: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo
Description: Built-in Audio Analog Stereo
[...]
Sink #409
State: SUSPENDED
Name: alsa_output.pci-0000_55_00.1.hdmi-stereo
Description: HDA NVidia Digital Stereo (HDMI)
[...]
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

(both showing as suspended currently as I'm not listening to anything)

If I direct sound to the analog-stereo sink (the speaker or headphones
on the system box), this works. If I direct the sound to the
hdmi-stereo sink, nothing comes out. All indications are that it should
(via pavucontrol or alsamixer) and I have checked the actual volume
controls on the monitors.

I have no idea how to debug this further. The HDMI cables are fine and
sound through HDMI worked with the ubuntu installation.

Any suggestions welcome!

Thank you,
eric

--
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 31.0.50 2026-02-11) on Debian 13.3

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Hello,

No idea but if you are using a DE that implements Pipewire natively and Pulseaudio as a compatibility layer (Gnome, perhaps KDE and others) you
could verify the sound setup in the DE and also vi the CLI or GUI
Pipewire tools

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Response below/inline for email didier gaumet wrote:

(original email sent 12 Feb 2026 at 10:05)

No idea but if you are using a DE that implements Pipewire natively
and Pulseaudio as a compatibility layer (Gnome, perhaps KDE and
others) you could verify the sound setup in the DE and also vi the CLI
or GUI Pipewire tools

I normally use Emacs as my DE but I've logged in using a more
traditional one and it exhibits the same behaviour: the devices are
there but no sound comes out of the actual speakers in the monitors.

I know next to nothing about pipewire. Any suggested things to try?

Thank you,
eric

--
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 31.0.50 2026-02-11) on Debian 13.3

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Le 12/02/2026 … 12:37, Eric S Fraga a ‚critÿ:

Response below/inline for email didier gaumet wrote:

(original email sent 12 Feb 2026 at 10:05)

No idea but if you are using a DE that implements Pipewire natively
and Pulseaudio as a compatibility layer (Gnome, perhaps KDE and
others) you could verify the sound setup in the DE and also vi the CLI
or GUI Pipewire tools

I normally use Emacs as my DE but I've logged in using a more
traditional one and it exhibits the same behaviour: the devices are
there but no sound comes out of the actual speakers in the monitors.

I know next to nothing about pipewire. Any suggested things to try?

Thank you,
eric

Context is of importance: which "traditional" DE did you use? Because
unless you have tailored your audio setup to your needs, that the DE
which implies the use of a particular audio system.

So I presume Emacs does not implies anything, audio wise (basic Alsa).
And depending on the DE, on have a high level audio layer, either
PulseAudio or Pipewire (with or without a Pulseaudio compatibility layer).
I know that Gnome uses Pipewire, I think (not sure) KDE Plasma too, I
know Xfce uses Pulseaudio. I dont't know the others.

If you want to know which high level audio layer (Pipewire or
Pulseaudio) is used:

didier@hp-notebook14:~$ ps -axl | grep -i pulse
0 1000 2325 2296 9 -11 120528 25732 do_epo S<Lsl ? 0:39 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse
0 1000 15787 15761 20 0 6616 2420 pipe_r S+ pts/0 0:00 grep -i pulse
didier@hp-notebook14:~$ ps -axl | grep -i pipewi
4 1000 2320 2296 9 -11 105816 16068 do_epo S<sl ? 0:37 /usr/bin/pipewire
0 1000 2322 2296 20 0 10812 5020 do_epo Ss ? 0:00 /usr/bin/pipewire -c filter-chain.conf
0 1000 2325 2296 9 -11 120528 25732 do_epo S<Lsl ? 0:39 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse
0 1000 15790 15761 20 0 6616 2484 pipe_r S+ pts/0 0:00 grep -i pipewi

As you can see, I use Gnome so Pipewire is used with a Pulseaudio compatibility layer.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-12, Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

Response below/inline for email didier gaumet wrote:

(original email sent 12 Feb 2026 at 10:05)

No idea but if you are using a DE that implements Pipewire natively
and Pulseaudio as a compatibility layer (Gnome, perhaps KDE and
others) you could verify the sound setup in the DE and also vi the CLI
or GUI Pipewire tools

I normally use Emacs as my DE but I've logged in using a more
traditional one and it exhibits the same behaviour: the devices are
there but no sound comes out of the actual speakers in the monitors.

I know next to nothing about pipewire. Any suggested things to try?

So pavucontrol has HDMI toggled on in Configuration/Output device and
the decibel graph reacts to played sound?

Thank you,
eric

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, 12 Feb 2026 11:37:29 +0000
Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

Response below/inline for email didier gaumet wrote:

(original email sent 12 Feb 2026 at 10:05)

No idea but if you are using a DE that implements Pipewire natively
and Pulseaudio as a compatibility layer (Gnome, perhaps KDE and
others) you could verify the sound setup in the DE and also vi the
CLI or GUI Pipewire tools

I normally use Emacs as my DE but I've logged in using a more
traditional one and it exhibits the same behaviour: the devices are
there but no sound comes out of the actual speakers in the monitors.

I know next to nothing about pipewire. Any suggested things to try?

If absolutely all else fails, it could be worth getting the live
version of the Ubuntu that worked, to check the modules used and any
relevant contents of /etc, /proc and /dev. A few years ago, I would have suggested Knoppix, which was extremely good at detecting and driving
hardware, but the last public version is now five years old.

I used to constantly have audio trouble with new installations, and knew
how to fix it, but haven't for many years now. The speaker-test utility
still works, but at quite low level, which is not where your problem
appears to be.

--
Joe

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Response below/inline for email Bigsy Bohr wrote:

(original email sent 12 Feb 2026 at 14:14)

So pavucontrol has HDMI toggled on in Configuration/Output device and
the decibel graph reacts to played sound?

Exactly. This is what is strange.

--
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 31.0.50 2026-02-11) on Debian 13.3

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Response below/inline for email didier gaumet wrote:

(original email sent 12 Feb 2026 at 14:55)

Context is of importance: which "traditional" DE did you use?

Yes, of course. Sorry for not saying. I tried gnome.

If you want to know which high level audio layer (Pipewire or
Pulseaudio) is used:

[...]

As you can see, I use Gnome so Pipewire is used with a Pulseaudio compatibility layer.

I have exactly the same output when using Emacs as my DE.

Thank you,
eric

--
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 31.0.50 2026-02-11) on Debian 13.3

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Eric S Fraga (HE12026-02-12):

Exactly. This is what is strange.

You have not mentioned if you have ever managed to get HDMI sound from
that monitor, from another computer or from the original Ubuntu.

Regards,

--
Nicolas George

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Bigsy Bohr (HE12026-02-12):

I think he did mention in the OP that HDMI sound worked in his Ubuntu installation.

My bad, I had not read it carefully enough to the end. Please disregard
my comment, thanks for correcting me.

Regards,

--
Nicolas George

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-12, Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:

Eric S Fraga (HE12026-02-12):

Exactly. This is what is strange.

You have not mentioned if you have ever managed to get HDMI sound from
that monitor, from another computer or from the original Ubuntu.

I think he did mention in the OP that HDMI sound worked in his Ubuntu installation.

Regards,

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Eric S Fraga wrote:

Response below/inline for email Bigsy Bohr wrote:

(original email sent 12 Feb 2026 at 14:14)

So pavucontrol has HDMI toggled on in Configuration/Output device and
the decibel graph reacts to played sound?

Exactly. This is what is strange.

Any chance that the monitor has its own volume control and mute
control?

-dsr-

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Le 12/02/2026 … 17:01, Eric S Fraga a ‚critÿ:
[...]

I tried gnome.

[...]
- In Gnome you may try to modify the sound setup:
Parameters/Sound/Output Device (My Debian is in french so I translated approximately, perhaps the menus are slighty different).
You would select HDMI

- without Gnome, as Pipewire seems active even under Emacs as a session,
you may try select HDMI output via Pipewire pw-* commands. I have never
used it, perhaps start with pw-link.
To make HDMI audio output the default, there is a mini-tutorial here
(wpctl):
https://srobb.net/pipewire.html

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Response below/inline for email Dan Ritter wrote:

(original email sent 12 Feb 2026 at 11:06)

Any chance that the monitor has its own volume control and mute
control?

Thanks for the suggestion. It does and it's the kind of thing I have
been known to miss in the past but, this time, I did check the volume
controls on both monitors: they are both showing non-zero volume and
there's no mute control (that I can see). I've never previously
actually touched these controls and everything worked fine in ubuntu.

--
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 31.0.50 2026-02-11) on Debian 13.3

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Response below/inline for email Joe wrote:

(original email sent 12 Feb 2026 at 15:59)

If absolutely all else fails, it could be worth getting the live
version of the Ubuntu that worked, to check the modules used and any
relevant contents of /etc, /proc and /dev.

Thanks. A good suggestion. I'll try to find time to do this in the
next few days.

--
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 31.0.50 2026-02-11) on Debian 13.3

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Response below/inline for email didier gaumet wrote:

(original email sent 12 Feb 2026 at 17:43)

- In Gnome you may try to modify the sound setup:

I tried this. The options are the same as in Emacs as are the outcomes.

- without Gnome, as Pipewire seems active even under Emacs as a
session, you may try select HDMI output via Pipewire pw-*
commands. I have never used it, perhaps start with pw-link.

I will investigate.

In the meantime, two more data points I have thought of and that maybe I
should have included in the original description:

1. although the input connection on the monitors is HDMI, the video
ports on the system box are DP and so there is a DP->HDMI converter
in between. The sound sinks appear as HDMI nevertheless.

2. one key difference between the Ubuntu setup and Debian is that the
former used an nvidia driver for the graphics and the latter uses
nouveau.

Whether either of these facts matter, I don't know.

Thanks again all that are trying to help me here!

eric
--
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 31.0.50 2026-02-11) on Debian 13.3

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-13, Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

2. one key difference between the Ubuntu setup and Debian is that the
former used an nvidia driver for the graphics and the latter uses
nouveau.

Could be a driver issue.

Whether either of these facts matter, I don't know.

Thanks again all that are trying to help me here!

eric

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Response below/inline for email Bigsy Bohr wrote:

(original email sent 13 Feb 2026 at 15:48)

Could be a driver issue.

Indeed but which driver? Any ideas/suggestions?
Thank you,
eric

--
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 31.0.50 2026-02-11) on Debian 13.3

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-13, Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

Response below/inline for email Bigsy Bohr wrote:

(original email sent 13 Feb 2026 at 15:48)

Could be a driver issue.

Indeed but which driver? Any ideas/suggestions?

You could try the proprietary NVIDIA driver.

Thank you,
eric

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 13/02/2026 11:12 pm, Eric S Fraga wrote:

Response below/inline for email Bigsy Bohr wrote:

Could be a driver issue.

Indeed but which driver? Any ideas/suggestions?

Have you skimmed through "journalctl -b" output to see if some issues,
like missed firmware, are reported? (Just to ensure that you have not forgotten to check logs.)

Have you tried to search for nouveau bugs related to your graphics
adapter model and HDMI audio? After all, bug tracker may be a source of inspiration for debugging techniques.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-14, Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> wrote:

On 13/02/2026 11:12 pm, Eric S Fraga wrote:

Response below/inline for email Bigsy Bohr wrote:

Could be a driver issue.

Indeed but which driver? Any ideas/suggestions?

Have you skimmed through "journalctl -b" output to see if some issues,
like missed firmware, are reported? (Just to ensure that you have not forgotten to check logs.)

Have you tried to search for nouveau bugs related to your graphics
adapter model and HDMI audio? After all, bug tracker may be a source of inspiration for debugging techniques.

Below the feature matrix for the nouveau driver by card:

https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/FeatureMatrix.html

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Response below/inline for email Max Nikulin wrote:

(original email sent 14 Feb 2026 at 09:48)

Have you skimmed through "journalctl -b" output to see if some issues,
like missed firmware, are reported? (Just to ensure that you have not forgotten to check logs.)

I have checked the logs. Thanks.

Have you tried to search for nouveau bugs related to your graphics
adapter model and HDMI audio? After all, bug tracker may be a source
of inspiration for debugging techniques.

Ah, this was very helpful. I hadn't thought of looking at bugs in
nouveau. There are indeed two outstanding bugs listed which might be
relevant:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/nouveau/-/issues/358 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/nouveau/-/issues/402

In both cases, it is mentioned that the proprietary nvidia module should
work okay so I will try that and will report back.

Thanks again,
eric

--
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 31.0.50 2026-02-11) on Debian 13.3

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Response below/inline for email Bigsy Bohr wrote:

(original email sent 13 Feb 2026 at 17:07)

You could try the proprietary NVIDIA driver.

I have done so now (as also suggested by Max Nikulin). This sent me
down a rabbit hole unfortunately. With the nvidia driver, I no longer
can access more than my first monitor (there does seem to be an issue
with dual monitors, the nvidia drivers, and recent kernels).

I've reverted back to nouveau and will put up with no sound from the
monitors. I need a stable multi-monitor environment more than I need
sound. I can hope that the nouveau driver will be updated at some point
to address sound via DP/HDMI but it's not mission critical [1].

Thank you all for the very many helpful suggestions.

eric


Footnotes:
[1] the speaker in the system box itself is actually not too bad and I
have good headphones. :-Q

--
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 31.0.50 2026-02-11) on Debian 13.3

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)