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Tope Taiwo
Tope Taiwo

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From Silence to Sound: Fixing Audio on Ubuntu Linux on my Samsung Galaxy Book

#linux #ubuntu #opensource #samsung

Over four days. That’s how long I spent trying to get the internal speakers on my Samsung Galaxy Book2 (NT950XDA) to produce a single sound after switching from Windows to Ubuntu.

And I wasn’t alone.

The Problem

Right out of the box, Ubuntu (even the latest 24.04) doesn’t play well with the Realtek ALC298 audio codec on many Samsung Galaxy Book devices. Headphones might work, but internal speakers remain silent due to uninitialized smart speaker amps.

I found myself crawling through obscure forum posts, GitHub issues, and deep dmesg logs. I came across broken workarounds, kernel parameters, even dead-end firmware downloads. Nothing stuck — until I discovered a promising thread from the Manjaro community and a early work of @joshuagrisham.

The Breakthrough

The answer turned out to be hda-verb, a tool for sending manual codec commands to initialize the amp. After copying dozens of lines of hda-verb commands into a script and running it manually, audio finally burst through my speakers.

It worked—but only until the next reboot.

The Automation

That’s when I decided to build a real solution:

  • Auto-run the fix at boot and after resume
  • Avoid breaking any existing audio setups
  • Use systemd services for reliability
  • Keep it simple, safe, and open source

The Tool: galaxybook-linux-setup

Now available on GitHub: https://github.com/topzyray/galaxybook-linux-setup

Features:

  • 🛠 Initializes smart speaker amps via hda-verb
  • 🌀 Runs fix on boot + resume using systemd
  • 🎚 Disables PulseAudio's suspend-on-idle to prevent speaker freezing
  • 📁 Backs up existing config files to avoid damage
  • ⚙️ Detects your current user and system safely
  • 🤝 MIT-licensed, contributions welcome

Installation is as easy as:

git clone https://github.com/topzyray/galaxybook-linux-setup.git
cd galaxybook-linux-setup
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Reboot when prompted, and you’re done. No more silent boots.

Who This Might Helps

  • Galaxy Book2 NT950XDA users or other device with similar issue or device/driver info
  • Anyone with Realtek ALC298 codec and no speaker output
  • Linux newcomers switching from Windows
  • Ubuntu/Mint/Pop_OS/Manjaro users on 5.8+ kernels though I tested on 6.14.

Credit Where Due

Joshua Grisham @joshuagrisham – GitHub
Community post from user @drlucas – Manjaro Forum
Access hda-ver used here

The Bigger Picture

This project reminded me why open source matters. Without the knowledge of those before me, I’d still be rebooting into silence.

Now, I’m extending this to include fingerprint readers, screen brightness fixes, and more for Galaxy Book users and I will also be testing on other devices. Please you can test too.

NOTE: The script does not delete any file rather it create a backup whenever updating an existing file.

Have a similar issue? Found this useful? Contribute, fork, share, or open an issue!

👉 Repo: https://github.com/topzyray/galaxybook-linux-setup

If you have further question, suggestion or observations please leave them in the comment section. Thank you for reading.

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