I agree with @mdd12.
But there is one thing I would like to know about your 'lshw' output:
*-multimedia:0 UNCLAIMED
description: Audio device
product: Raven/Raven2/Fenghuang HDMI/DP Audio Controller
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
Are you sure this is your motherboard-integrated audio ?
The mention of HDMI/DP suggest that it could be the digital audio on your GPU/Videocard.
On most systems you will find two audio devices, both the GPU (for audio over HDMI) as well as motherboard-integrated audio (for audio over speakers/headset).
To see for which devices the drivers are loaded you could issue this command:
cat /proc/asound/cards
On my computer this results in:
0 [HDMI ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfce60000 irq 99
1 [Generic ]: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
HD-Audio Generic at 0xfcd00000 irq 101
To compare with the above:
My kernelversion: 5.15.0-52-generic
My ALSA version 1.2.6
And here is a relevant excerpt of the lshw of my desktop. Everything works smooth at this end.
invoked: sudo lshw -class sound
*-multimedia
description: Audio device
product: Ellesmere HDMI Audio [Radeon RX 470/480 / 570/580/590]
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
physical id: 0.1
bus info: [email protected]:2d:00.1
logical name: card0
logical name: /dev/snd/controlC0
logical name: /dev/snd/hwC0D0
logical name: /dev/snd/pcmC0D10p
logical name: /dev/snd/pcmC0D11p
logical name: /dev/snd/pcmC0D3p
logical name: /dev/snd/pcmC0D7p
logical name: /dev/snd/pcmC0D8p
logical name: /dev/snd/pcmC0D9p
version: 00
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm pciexpress msi bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0
resources: irq:99 memory:fce60000-fce63fff
*-multimedia
description: Audio device
product: Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD]
physical id: 0.4
bus info: [email protected]:2f:00.4
logical name: card1
logical name: /dev/snd/controlC1
logical name: /dev/snd/hwC1D0
logical name: /dev/snd/pcmC1D0c
logical name: /dev/snd/pcmC1D0p
logical name: /dev/snd/pcmC1D1p
logical name: /dev/snd/pcmC1D2c
version: 00
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm pciexpress msi bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0
resources: irq:101 memory:fcd00000-fcd07fff
The top one is the audio on my GPU-card
The bottom one is the motherboard-integrated audio
There is a possibility that with the new kernel, pulse or pipewire are sending their output to the wrong device. Especially when HDMI is in use (because that seems to be the 'user friendly' way).
Could that be the issue here ?
You question:
Is there anything special I need to do to ensure that older kernel doesn't get removed during subsequent updates?
you can mark packages (including the kernel) with "hold":
read: 'Introduction to Holding Packages' halfway down this page:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PinningHowto
It is much easier to mark packages for 'hold' in 'synaptic' but then 'apt' needs to get that info too.
Luckily a single symlink will do the trick.
sudo ln -s /var/lib/synaptic/preferences /etc/apt/preferences.d/locked_in_synaptic