Hi - With ubuntu, I could get sound out of a tv through hdmi from a mini pc easily. I cannot get audio to work with either xubuntu or lubuntu. I set the output device to HDMI under pulse gui, but nothing happens. I only get the display but no audio. No idea why it would work in ubuntu but not lubuntu, or what I might have to do to get it to work. Any help would be appreciated. Thx
For both the working Ubuntu system and the non-working Lubuntu 22.04 system: for audio, are you using Pipewire or Pulseaudio? If Pipewire, are you using it with pipewire-media-session or Wireplumber?
Apologies. I mistyped, both the working ubuntu and nonworking lubuntu were 24.04 / LTS.
For audio, I was using whatever comes with the latest lubuntu LTS. Not 100% sure. I assumed it was pulseaudio since that was what I could find and open in the gui to edit sound settings. Just seems odd that it can see the HDMI output and recognize it was plugged in and connected. But selecting different outputs, restarting, logging out / in did not seem to help. Was not sure what else to try, and LLMs did not seem to be able to help.
I don’t know your issue, but I’ll give my thoughts.
It’ll be helpful if you tell us what exactly you installed; as Lubuntu/Xubuntu are flavors of Ubuntu thus defaults differ to Ubuntu Server/Ubuntu Desktop, with with 24.04 there have been 4 ISOs thus far released; 2 using GA kernel stack & 2 using HWE kernel stack; so maybe its this detail that differs.
Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 LTS ISOs all use HWE, Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS ISOs all use GA, but flavors vary on point release media that was used; the initial 24.04 & 24.04.1 use GA, with 24.04.2 & later using HWE. Maybe this is your difference, and switching kernel stacks is your fix?
For more details on this I’ll refer you to Kernel/LTSEnablementStack - Ubuntu Wiki but do note Ubuntu Desktop flavors still follow the pattern of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and earlier.
That may not be the only example of a difference between Ubuntu Desktop/Server (you don’t specify, but it was probably Desktop) and Ubuntu’s Desktop flavors. Being specific with what you’re comparing may reveal more.
I’ve assumed your Ubuntu experience was also 24.04? but was it? and what kernel [stack] did it use??
Both are desktop versions. Ubuntu is installed and works. Xubuntu 24.04 desktop was installed and had the same problem. Lubuntu 24.04 desktop is running off a USB as I didn’t want to waste time installing if it wasn’t going to work.
I actually just booted it up again off a USB and now the sound just works through the HDMI / tv. I did not even have to select a different audio output.
No idea what the inconsistency could be or if I should try the install and maybe everything is fine, or maybe the problem recurs. Also wish there was a better way to scale up the display for the TV other than xrandr ing it or lowering resolution or fooling around with the font size.
Specifics do matter, esp. with LTS releases of Ubuntu and flavors.
ie. for the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release alone, the Lubuntu team have thus far released the following
Lubuntu 24.04 LTSinitial media; installed with the GA kernel stack or 6.8 kernel; same as Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Server media
Lubuntu 24.04.1 LTSupdated media; again GA kernel where 6.8 was installed; again same as Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Server media
Lubuntu 24.04.2 LTS; our first release using the HWE kernel stack; so this point release matches the Ubuntu Desktop install defaults & not Ubuntu Server [kernel]; 6.11 kernel on media & HWE kernel packages included
Lubuntu 24.04.3 LTS; second release using the HWE kernel stack; again matching Ubuntu Desktop install defaults; 6.14 kernel on media & HWE kernel packages included
ie. there have been four 24.04 ISOs released thus far, and what is installed can vary depending on the point release you installed. Lubuntu media has the exact same defaults as all Ubuntu flavors, initial media & .1 matching Server, and .2 & later matching Desktop; so Xubuntu will match Lubuntu media as I describe.
Your detail only mentions release; and doesn’t include the point release of install media, which is what determines gets installed. That is what I was referring to; as that makes a different to kernel installed; also impacting kernel modules which are commonly called drivers.
FYI: Whilst Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Desktop initial media also contained the 6.8 kernel; the key difference with flavors may not be apparent when booted live, but due to packages on install media; when Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Desktop upgrades the kernel package the 6.8 will change to 6.14 when 24.04.3 updates are applied. Ubuntu flavor media using the initial media having 6.8 on media will still be using the 6.8 kernel when 24.04.3 updates are applied just as Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Server did; due to packages installed. Ubuntu flavors still use the pattern of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Desktop in the HWE Hardware Enablement docs link I provided earlier.
ie. current noble (24.04) kernels will be (using noble-security here)
where Ubuntu Desktop default is the last line, Ubuntu Server installs will be the first or second line depending on architecture, but Ubuntu flavors (Lubuntu, Xubuntu etc) will be determined by point release media used and thus could be top or bottom line (unless Xubuntu had an riscv64 ISO; I know Lubuntu didn’t). The packages installed dictates your kernel upgrades to; and packages installed [by default] is set by install media.
Lubuntu was the 24.04.03 desktop release and Ubuntu was the 24.04.02 desktop release.
Currently uninstalling lubuntu on this underpowered mini pc, since Ubuntu could run and worked fine for streaming video to the TV.
After the sound worked with lubuntu for unknown reasons, the next problem was that video output to the TV was choppy / laggy while it was normal on Ubuntu.
Tried installing ubuntu-restricted-extras, and turning off the picom compositor, but neither worked to achieve normal video output to the tv from web streaming. Was interested in using a lighter weight flavor but this level of problems / tweaking things for basic functionality to work does not seem worth it.
Lubuntu uses the calamares installer, which does have different swap defaults. For resource limited devices (esp. devices with lower RAM; <4GB) I’ve always found I need to tweak swap defaults to get decent performance where the calamares installer is used.
Ubuntu desktop uses the ubuntu-desktop-installer (23.04 & newer) which explains that difference.
Hmm yeah there was a question in the installer about swap where I could select none or some amount of memory. Can’t remember the details but it seemed rather large for a 6gb ram machine. I picked the choice to use swap.
The question in calamares is whether or not you want to use swap, if you select YES it’ll create a 512MB swapfile, which for much of the older/limited hardware I’m using is just too small.
I needed to steal a RAM stick from an old 2008 machine here so I could use it to test another device (which was having RAM issues), so I dropped that device from 8GB down to 4GB and didn’t expect I’d notice given my usage of that machine… Boy was I wrong!!! The device kept ‘pausing’ whilst running with only 4GB until I tweaked (ie. increased the size) of the swapfile and then suddenly the machine was operating with 4GB just as it was when it whilst it still had 8GB.
Swap can make a HUGE difference, esp. when a machine is lacking resources.
