Subwoofer with ... Ubuntu 10.10?

First time installing Ubuntu (used debian earlier). Installed it on a fairly new laptop (DV8t). Pretty much everything works out of the box, wireless, NVIDIA propriatory drivers, webcam, sleep, dual HDDs, skype..Linux has come far

Only thing which doesnt work is the subwoofer/treble controls (interestingly, they dont work after a clean install with win 7 pro either).

Please help me make the subwoofer controls work and help linux beat windows

 

Well typically subwoofers are handled by a program/driver pack, ie creative. Without creative installed in win7 I also lose my sub, so you'd need to find a creative sound pack for linux and you should be good.

 

The laptop subwoofers were working with the factory home premium win 7 install; so there should be some software for it. But even after installing win 7 drivers from HP site, I have not been able to make the subwoofer work in win 7 pro clean install.

 

Right, mine also worked fine from the factory, because they pre-install the creative software for you! That all goes away (along with whatever bloatware they load) when you clean install. There should be a disc or download from hp for the creative software suite, it's more than just a driver.

Dunno how you'd go about this for linux though, the last update from them for linux was in 08, yikes.

 

This is usually a problem until it's patched in ALSA. It looks like HP DV7 support was added in 1.0.23 but there's no mention of the DV8 subwoofer on their mailing list.

You might want to try removing pulseaudio and see if the subwoofer output works. You can always reinstall it if nothing changes.

 

If I remove pulseaudio; will sound work or do I have to install a replacement? Someone was also saying that pulseaudio/gstreamer are resource hogs..is that true?

 

Pulseaudio sits on top of ALSA, which is what drives the hardware. You'll still have sound. It's extremely easy to remove and reinstall.