I've trolled the internets to make hdmi work on my system
Ubuntu 12.04
software center kernel 3.5
uname: Linux ubuntu 3.5.0-18-generic #29~precise1-Ubuntu SMP...x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
open source radeon drivers
vgaswitcheroo (hybrid intel/radeon gpu): I boot with intel, not radeon, running.
(and recall that with kernel 3.5, vgaswitcheroo now gives info on a third item, "DIS-Audio"; it indicates pwr on my system)
(
/etc/rc.local:
chown user:user /sys/kernel/debug/ # change "username" with your user name
echo OFF /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
)
grub indeed now has "radeon.audio=1"
for testing audio, I did
aplay -l
which gave me the card and device, which made me try
aplay -D plughw:1,3 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
and lo! I get crystal clear sound on my hdtv.
If I play an mp3 file as the argument to that command, I get noise as, I guess, aplay interprets the mp3 code as a wav.
If I play a .wav that is not in the /usr/share/sounds/alsa/ directory, I get nothing.
Internet flash video in browser plays no sound over hdmi.
Both system sounds control and pavucontrol have hdmi cedar selected. Alas, I can not get sound for any gui test (left, right).
Why would only aplay, and only when directed with "-D plughw", yield sound over hdmi?
I've also tried only using one sound program at a time, if it was a limitation of alsa, so I tried aplay with web browser and even the sound control gui closed. I tried each of the last two, running alone. No improvement.
alsamixer only shows hda intel and I think it's only the intel audio, not the hdmi.