Up to this point I have not been able to find a fix to get the internal and external mics on the Z62J laptop working with Lenny's 2.6.26-2-686 kernel. Now since the internal mic is one of the features I was looking for in my notebook this is a big issue for me so I did the following to revert to the Etch (actually “etchnhalf”) 2.6.24 kernel. Update: I switched to Sid's 2.6.29-1-686 kernel which seems to work just fine.

Please note that once these steps are taken your Debian install is no longer Debian 5 “Lenny” stable as it is a now a “mixed” distro. If you're not comfortable with that or don't have a clue what it means then it may be be better to just wait for a fix from the Debian team.

I edited the /etc/apt/sources.list:

 nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Then I added this line to access Etch packages:

 deb http://debian.uchicago.edu/debian/ etch main contrib non-free

or

 deb http://debian.uchicago.edu/debian/ sid main contrib non-free

for Sid's 2.6.29-1-686 kernel

I then executed:

 apt-get update

And installed the Etch kernel which I know was working previously:

 apt-get install linux-image-2.6.24-etchnhalf.1-686

or

 apt-get install linux-image-2.6.29-1-686

for the Sid kernel

Then I commented out the default kernel (without uninstalling it just in case) by editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst file:

 nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

and changing this part:

 title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-2-686
 root		(hd0,0)
 kernel		/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686 root=/dev/mapper/Qdebtop-root ro quiet
 initrd		/initrd.img-2.6.26-2-686
 
 title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-2-686 (single-user mode)
 root		(hd0,0)
 kernel		/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686 root=/dev/mapper/Qdebtop-root ro single
 initrd		/initrd.img-2.6.26-2-686

so that is looks like this:

 # title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-2-686
 # root		(hd0,0)
 # kernel		/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686 root=/dev/mapper/Qdebtop-root ro quiet
 # initrd		/initrd.img-2.6.26-2-686
 
 # title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-2-686 (single-user mode)
 # root		(hd0,0)
 # kernel		/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686 root=/dev/mapper/Qdebtop-root ro single
 # initrd		/initrd.img-2.6.26-2-686

Upon reboot the mics and sound output were back to normal. For me this is not a big deal as I was using Lenny “testing” all along. Since I normally live in the testing section surfacing into stable only during transition periods like now this solution is not a problem for me.

What now follows is my initial attempt to fix this issue. I thought it was fixed because I was using headphones the entire time. Once I tried to listen to a recording without the headphones then I realized something was wrong.

The steps outlined below have been left here for reference only. This is not a fix for the mic issue! Following these steps will result in the mics working but the speaker output failing (though the headphone jack works). I'm only leaving this here because even though it did not work for this particular model the steps taken are valid for those with similar issues. Also it may be useful for those who don't mind the external speakers not working or for the future: bug reporting, etc..

After installing Lenny on the Asus Z62J Laptop I was pleased to find all hardware working except the laptop's internal microphone (which I use for Skype). See the summary here. For the microphone after quite a bit of “Google-ing” I found this page on the Ubuntu forums and based on what is therein mentioned did the following.

To identify the Z62J's sound card codec I did the following as per the instructions on the mentioned website:

 cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#* | grep Codec

That yielded this:

 Codec: Analog Devices AD1986A
 Codec: Conexant ID 2bfa

The first line is the one with sound card codec proper: identified with AD1986A in this case.

With the codec info I returned the forum page and searched for the identifier which turned out to be:

 laptop-automute

Now with Lenny and I suspect the latest Ubuntu as well in order to specify the correct sound card one needs to modify the file at /etc/modprobe.d/sound and not the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base as so many websites (including the forum page I used for this little task) recommend (for earlier releases).

So I pressed Alt + F2 to bring up the “Run Application” box and in it I put:

 gksu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/sound

Alternatively of course I could have simply typed the same thing or used nano as root in a terminal window but I sometimes choose Gnome goodness.

I then added this to the file:

 options snd-hda-intel model=laptop-automute

I then rebooted the system, opened the mixer, and unmuted the mic which worked just fine after setting the appropriate volume levels.

That's it.

~~DISCUSSION~~