On latest (1/11/21) update, NO sound cards detected

[Don Pettengill]

I have tried everything. My SoundBlaster USB sound card was not detected on update; I found no way to repair this. I went to BIOS to enable the on-board Intel sound card; on reboot that was not detected either. But the USB sound card is shown with lsusb, and the on-board sound controller is listed with lspci. There is NO /proc/asound/. Cards are NOT detected. Reloading Alsa, no sound drivers are loaded; not surprising as no sound cards are found.

I tried booting with the previous kernel version; then, pavucontrol shows sound cards, sound is "as it was". HOWEVER now my monitor is stuck at low resolution and I can't see how to fix that, either. So much for "keeping previous Kernel versions, just in case".

So Xorg X windows has an issue too, or perhaps it's the nvidia driver. No way for me to know, both drivers were upgraded and now it's screwed. The latest kernel is compatible for graphics - but NOT for sound. Previous kernels work fine for sound but NOT for graphics. Great.

Big fan of linux (been running it since late 90s) but my advice to non-geeks is still to avoid it. Sound is and has always been a huge issue. Until today I have managed to hack my way through the problems (Red Hat -> Debian -> Ubuntu) but right now I am crying "uncle". I can see no way to restore sound on my system.

Nothing this has has happened ever; I have always been able to patch things up previously. This is different. I am totally screwed. Seriously considering going back to Debian, or maybe some different distribution. Yes, I appreciate that it's free. Today, a non-free OS looks good - if it works.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: subiquity (1772)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.8.0-36.40~20.04.1-generic 5.8.18
Uname: Linux 5.8.0-36-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.14
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CrashDB:
 {
        "impl": "launchpad",
        "project": "subiquity",
        "bug_pattern_url": "http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/bugpatterns/bugpatterns.xml"
     }
CurrentDesktop: LXDE
CurtinLog: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/log/installer/curtin-install.log'
Date: Mon Jan 11 16:16:10 2021
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-09-25 (108 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200423)
InstallerLog: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'logfile'
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: subiquity
Symptom: installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Don Pettengill (ubuntudfp)]

I would like to add that I do sincerely appreciate the effort of volunteers to help solve my problem and I cast no blame on anyone for these issues. It is what it is.