Comment 25 for bug 310760

Indeed, on a fully up-to-date hardy system, after installing linux-image-generic from intrepid (along with linux-firmware and linux-image-2.6.27-7-generic) and rebooting, arecord works just fine and capute from the webcam mic no problem. All thing being equal, this point to a problem with the kernel.

And it must be something rather specific 2.6.24. For kicks, I installed gutsy (kernel 2.6.22-14), and recording using arecord worked out-of-the-box, no killing of hald required.