Thanks for responding.
I basically gave up on debian minimal for this at some point then spent another big long thread trying to get fedora to work (NOT my preference but they seemed to be having better luck with it), with the same result–my machine would pretend to play music, but nothing would come out of my speakers because sys-audio wouldn’t recognize my device. At this point, basically my debian-based sys-audio is long gone.
(Fedora six ring rodeo trying to get that to work: Setting up an audio VM - #28 by logoerthiner)
Nevertheless I tried cycling both a disposable and non-disposable version of that template like you talked about here…with zero success.
It’s just as well, honestly. If I have to do that every time I start it, it’s a broken piece of junk I don’t want on my system. Assuming I went with the disposable, how long would it be before my audio quit working because now it needs to be cycled 5 times instead of 3?
If it won’t work the first time it comes up, it’s crap.
EDIT TO ADD: Recreated my deb11 minimal stuff…same result. No amount of repetition will find the driver I seem to be missing.