I have installed the 2020.05 release of KaOS in a brand new Lenovo Carbon X1 7th Gen.
Details of the machine can be found here:

The Audio is not recognizable by KaOS and the volume keys don't do anything. As suggested long ago for a similar machine, I installed kmix. It still not worked.

Then, I realized, opening the audio settings, that there was No output or input devices found, and a mere Dummy output is there.

I also have updated my machine firmwares with fwupdmgr, and the audio still does not work. I have tried Windows10 and Ubuntu 20.04LTS installations and the audio work properly on both.

Does anyone have a solution for this issue?

P.S. A similar issue with the touchpad device in the same installation is posted separately

Logs will be needed, did you check dmesg for Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: sof-audio-pci bus ID: 00:1f.3 (any parts of it)?
Does the journal show any clues what is missing/used for this hardware?
Good wiki entry for your hardware.
You probably will need the linux-next kernel to have a change to get audio working.
Did you check for needed firmware at the Lenovo site? https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/nl/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-x-series-laptops/thinkpad-x1-carbon-7th-gen-type-20qd-20qe/downloads/driver-list/

dmesg mentions sof-audio-pci only in:
[ 3.580581] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI class/subclass/prog-if info 0x040380
[ 3.580804] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: Digital mics found on Skylake+ platform, using SOF driver
[ 3.580956] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI class/subclass/prog-if 0x040380
...
[ 3.692276] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_audio_component_bind_ops [i915])
[ 3.706146] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: use msi interrupt mode
...
[ 3.737866] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: hda codecs found, mask 5
[ 3.737868] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: using HDA machine driver skl_hda_dsp_generic now
[ 3.738045] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: Direct firmware load for intel/sof/sof-cnl.ri failed with error -2
[ 3.738047] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: error: request firmware intel/sof/sof-cnl.ri failed err: -2
[ 3.738048] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: error: failed to load DSP firmware -2
...
[ 4.911530] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: error: sof_probe_work failed err: -2
Also,
[ 0.419089] ACPI: Added _OSI(Linux-Lenovo-NV-HDMI-Audio)
No other mentions of the Audio using dmesg:

I did reinstalled firmware from the Lenovo site (chipset and thunderbolth), but not audio drivers, as all seems to work properly in Win and Ubuntu (even Live CD)

Should I try the next kernel now?

  • demm replied to this.

    kamilomelo work properly in Win and Ubuntu

    If you can figure what drivers/firmware your system uses there, that would help.
    As the linked wiki page shows, sound should work with linux 5.6.8 and added sof-firmware, so linux-next might not help.

    Seemed this bug effected a lot of people in Ubuntu too:
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/1867479
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1860697

    Can you test if adding snd_hda_intel.dmic_detect=0 to the kernel boot-line fixes this? To do so, edit /boot/loader/entries/KaOS_2020.05.conf and add to the last (options) line. Reboot after.

    This looks promising, Debian also doesn't have the firmware, that Ubuntu somehow adds:
    https://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org/msg1743933.html

    EDIT:
    This is the best doc:
    https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Thinkpad/X1%20Carbon%207th%20Gen
    New needed package sof-firmware is added to the [build] repo (should become part of linux-firmware soon):

    sudo pacman -U http://kaosx.tk/repo/build/sof-firmware-1.5.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

        Indeed Ubuntu displays this using lsmod:

        ledtrig_audio          16384  4 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_sof,thinkpad_acpi
...
snd_hda_codec_realtek   118784  1
snd_hda_codec_generic    81920  1 snd_hda_codec_realtek

        and several mentions of this sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: using dmesg in Ubuntu...

        I tried the sof-firmware package you added and still does not work. Do i need to do any further action?
        After the package was added, I have several mentions of sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: using dmesg in KaOS, along with other stuff like [ 3.824816] snd_hda_codec_realtek ehdaudio0D0: speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)

        You want to see the full dmesg output?

        Did you follow the instructions in the pages linked for you regarding pulseaudio needed settings?

        Worked !
        Following indications above...

        demm This is the best doc:
        https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Thinkpad/X1%20Carbon%207th%20Gen
        New needed package sof-firmware is added to the [build] repo (should become part of linux-firmware soon):
        sudo pacman -U http://kaosx.tk/repo/build/sof-firmware-1.5.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

        Both audio and microphone work, also they can be controlled from the keyboard.

        Still little details like muting speakers when headphones are connected remain unsolved.