My machine shut down unexpectedly today (laptop battery is crap) and when I rebooted it I lost all sound.
I tried to go to Preferences->Sound but it just opens a little window saying "waiting for sound system to respond" and nothing happens. When my computer rebooted it did warn me of some errors in the filesystem after the unexpected shut down, but I let it correct all errors it found. I understand I may need to reinstall some packages, but I don't know which.
System: Dell XPS m1330 Ubuntu 10.10 64bit
Is there anyone out there who can help me? Thanks in advance!
You could use this nice script:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6589810
It should upgrade your sound drivers to the latest version and uninstall the older ones first.
This question was solved for me on Ubuntu forums 1:0 forums vs. askubuntu :-)
Link to thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1600845
Answer: (credit to Temüjin)