First of all. THANK YOU for Netrunner!
I tried linux several years ago and gave up.
I learned more about computers during that time.
I have an old laptop that needs a linux distro to stay alive.
I literally tried 10+ distro’s before I came across Netrunner
Thats alot of coasters since this laptop has no usb boot options.
FINALLY something that a lifetime Windows user can understand how to use.
Netrunner is running as smooth as silk on this CQ62 (the lowest no frills budget model)
And it is as fast as all H3LL too! With Windows 7…it was barely usable.
Every other linux distro was running very hot. Netrunner maintains temps in the 40’s.
Now for my questions…
The internal sound card is toast. I purchased a usb stereo adapter, which works fantastic.
Problem: Everytime I reboot, the internal sound card/driver is restored.
What do I do in order for the sound card/driver to be 100% ignored?
(I dread having to open the case and have to unplug it from the main board, but I will if I have to)
What is the process for cleaning up mistakes that have been made in the terminal?
Forgive me, I do not know the proper linux terms to ask the question right…
For example, if I use a command in the terminal and it doesnt work, is it necessary to undo it?
Or installing and uninstalling programs…tidying up afterwards, to keep things efficient?
I am worried that I might break something.
Thank you
Thats a little bit tricky. I would suggest first going into systemsettings → multimedia and setting your usb sound card as the default for everything.
Some applications however don’t recognize this. Here a little tool like pavucontrol (you can find it in the software center) can help. It allows you to set the default output device with a single click and should save this also through reboots.
You can also set the default output of every stream playing with it and regulate its volume which should be saved also.
Its a clever and nice tool which I can only recommend installing and using.
Wrong commands entered in the terminal simply only produce an error output or a warning. There is nothing that you need to undo here.
If you want to cleanup the output of the terminal you can either enter the command clear or hit Ctrl+L to clear the terminal output.
When it comes to installing and uninstalling applications there is a cache for all downloaded apps (+all other dependencies and packages). Normally this is very nice when you don’t want to redownload a package that you had already installed as it can just install it from cache then.
Sometimes these caching mechanism also wastes space when the application you had installed before got an update and it needs to download it again so you will have in the cache the old packages for app X and the new packages for app X.
The terminal command
sudo apt-get clean
helps here cleaning this particular cache.
I hope that helps you. Have a lot of fun using Netrunner
Thank you leszek,
pavucontrol…ok I will check that out.
I ruined something yesterday trying to do the sound stuff myself.
I tried uninstalling the pulse audio stuff and when I did not know what to do…
So the newbie answer was…I just reinstalled Netrunner.
I just plugged in a very old PS3 playstation eye.
I opened up Skype and Bam! It works perfectly.
This is just unheard of…I had to jump through so many hoops to
get that camera eye to work within Windows 7.
I dont know how the Netrunner people did this?
It really is true. Everything just works! And trust me I tried over 10.
For newcomers to linux it is very overwhelming…
It feels like a subsystem to a subsystem to a subsystem that never ends. :s
Actually the ps3 eyetoy camera is done by the experts over at kernel.org which develop and add new drivers with every release.
Subsystem over subsystem is that what makes Linux distros strong. You can with ease replace subsystems and it still works most of the time. It’s our job however to make it good as best as it can.
All I know is that i tried so many…
The power user, super guru, computer guys talk above my level of understanding.
So all I can do is read reviews and try distros based on user reviews from the kind of websites
that would make the linux power user puke. Ha!
The supposed easiest to use recommendations were not easy at all for me.
This manjaro/arch/netrunner/kde…sub/sub/sub/sub…is the golden ticket!
Is ther an option in the BIOS to turn off the audio chip?
If not, why not just blacklist it’s driver from loading?
To do this open a terminal window and enter this command:
kdesu kate /etc/modprobe.d/sound.blacklist.conf
add this line: blacklist snd_hda_intel
now save and reboot.
I need to make one correction on some advice that leszek gave earlier:
sudo apt-get clean
isn’t going to work under Netrunner Rolling since it is based on Manjaro and not Ubuntu.
The command you’ll need to use instead is:
sudo pacman -Scc
Just don’t use this command too often, If for some reason you have an issue with a updated version of an application that you need, then you won’t be able to roll it back to the version that did work.
The bios is limited on this model, so I didnt find anything there.
The code to blacklist the driver seemed to do the trick.
The audio options are now grayed out, with exception to the usb adapter.
Perfect…I am getting this computer ready to give back to my teenage son.
No teenage boy wants a computer without sound.
So now with that blacklist code everything should be covered.
Once I give this back to him I dont care if I ever touch it again.
He is going to be so happy with this…and saved me money I dont have to buy a new laptop.
