How to get sound in a Linux Hyper-V VM (works on ubuntu - but should work on others)

cereberus · Sep 18, 2021

In a previous post, I showed how to get sound on an ubuntu Hyper-VM build but it was pretty complicated.

I came across a simpler method using ffmpeg

Getting audio working on Ubuntu VM on Hyper-V - Scientific Programmer

As the author of NetCoreAudio, a .NET library that is designed to play audio on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, I need to have all three operating systems available for testing. The simplest and cheapest way to set up multiple …

scientificprogrammer.net

Basic steps are as follows:

1) install xrdp so you can get enhanced mode.

I used this for ubuntu

How to Enable Hyper-V Enhanced Session for Ubuntu 20.04 VMs

Let’s look at how to create and configure an Ubuntu 20.04 VM from scratch in Hyper-V. In this blog post, I use Windows 10 Pro version 20H2 with Hyper-V.

www.nakivo.com

2) install pulseaudio

Code:

sudo apt update

Code:

sudo snap install pulseaudio

3) install ffmpeg on Windows - I chose ffmpeg-N-103679-g7bbad32d5a-win64-gpl (see 1st link for details)

4) run this in powershell with admin rights

Code:

ffplay -nodisp -ac 2 -acodec pcm_s16le -ar 48000 -analyzeduration 0 -probesize 32 -f s16le -i udp://0.0.0.0:18181?listen=1

It runs and jumps to a cmd file and sort of stops dead as it executes - that is how it works.

With a little effort, you could auto start this using Task Scheduler I am sure. I just created a .bat file. This needs to be run each time you start windows (if you intend to use Linux with sound)

5) install ffmpeg on ubuntu vm

Code:

sudo snap install ffmpeg

6) Setup link to pulse audio

Code:

pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=remote

7) Start audio

Code:

ffmpeg -f pulse -i "remote.monitor" -ac 2 -acodec pcm_s16le -ar 48000 -f s16le "udp://192.168.1.198:18181"

Note: Change IP address for IP address of your Linux VM. Mine is 192.168.1.198. Look in network settings in Linux VM.

8) Kick start process

Sometimes you need to kick start process by running following command.

Code:

pulseaudio - k

It takes a few seconds to kick in.

You have to repeat steps 6 and 7 (and 8 if applicable) each time you restart Linux. Guys cleverer than me will work out how to create a batch file to do this on start I am sure.

You get a slight time delay but you can correct this in VLC. Again, guys cleverer than me will work out how to have a permanent delay (+ or -) with ffmpeg.

johnlgalt · Sep 18, 2021

Ye, gods, this is 1000x more simple than when I fought with (repeatedly) ALSA trying to get sound on my previous rig in Gentoo.

Thanks!

cereberus · Sep 19, 2021

johnlgalt said:
Ye, gods, this is 1000x more simple than when I fought with (repeatedly) ALSA trying to get sound on my previous rig in Gentoo.

Thanks!

Although article says you do not need to be in enhanced mode, I found step 7 falls over with an error if in basic mode.