Re: Guix System 1.0: No audio

[Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>]

Hi sirgazil,

sirgazil <sirgazil@zoho.com> writes:

> I installed the GNU system with GNOME using the ISO installer (https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guix-system-install-1.0.0.x86_64-linux.iso.xz).
>
> When I play video or audio in the browser or in the desktop, I get no
> audio. The volume controls in the browser and desktop show the sound
> is not disabled.

Have you been able to get any sound to come out of the speakers at all
in Guix?  For example, when you change the volume using the slider in
the menu from the top-right corner in GNOME Shell, do you hear the sound
effects when you let go of the slider at a high volume level?

Which browser(s) did you try?

> There are no errors about missing codecs or anything
> like that. The media plays, but there is no audio coming out from the
> speakers (which are on). Audio and speakers worked fine in the distro
> I was using before installing GNU with Guix.
>
> Maybe I need additional packages or services?

Quite possibly.  I include the following packages in my user profile:

       gstreamer
       gst-plugins-base
       gst-plugins-good
       gst-libav

Specifically, the addition of 'gst-libav' adds plugins for many popular
codecs that would otherwise be unavailable.  The 'gstreamer' package
needs to be in the same profile as the 'gst-*' packages, or else
GST_PLUGIN_SYSTEM_PATH might not be set appropriately to find the
plugins.

These codecs are needed by Epiphany (a.k.a. GNOME Web) and many other
GNOME applications.  However, they shouldn't be needed by IceCat, which
links directly with ffmpeg and doesn't use gstreamer.

       Mark