Can not record desktop audio

[LaserTribble]

My apologies for making my first post a "help me!" post, but I have been driving myself nuts off and on with this for the past week and have finally been humbled enough to ask for help.

I can not record desktop audio. Not using Audacity, nor any screen capturing programs, nor any command line tools.... nothing will record my desktop audio. Time after time it will record off my laptop's onboard mic, but never the straight audio from the desktop. I have messed with every combination of sound program output / recording input to no avail. Seriously, I have tried *EVERYTHING*.

From the general feel of it I have an idea that it most likely is a driver issue. Specifically, everything lists my HDMI controller first, which is strange as I have never used HDMI out on this machine. An example -

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[email protected] ~ $ sudo lspci | grep Audio
Password:                                                                                                                                                               
00:01.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Trinity HDMI Audio Controller
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller (rev 01)
[email protected] ~ $    

The laptop in question is a Lenovo G505s with an (I believe) CX20757 sound chip. Perhaps I should disable the HDMI controller? And if so, how? Any other ideas? Seriously, I'm totally at a loss here, and would appreciate any input into this.

Some random shell droppings:

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[email protected] ~ $ lsmod | grep snd                                                                                                                                     
snd_hda_codec_conexant     8544  1 
snd_hda_codec_generic    38941  1 snd_hda_codec_conexant
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     31820  1 
snd_hda_intel          19127  5 
snd_hda_controller     15806  1 snd_hda_intel
snd_hda_codec          72983  5 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_controller
snd_hwdep               4750  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                64062  4 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_controller
snd_timer              14582  1 snd_pcm
snd                    47174  18 snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_pcm,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
[email protected] ~ $ 

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[email protected] ~ $ cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [HDMI           ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
                      HDA ATI HDMI at 0xf0244000 irq 30
 1 [Generic        ]: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
                      HD-Audio Generic at 0xf0240000 irq 16
[email protected] ~ $ cat /proc/asound/modules
 0 snd_hda_intel
 1 snd_hda_intel

[xpto]

Assuming you are using Pulseaudio, if you can ear desktop audio you can also record it.
Using pavucontrol go to the Recording tab and, from de drop menu, select the source "Monitor of ...".
In my case it is "Monitor of Built-in Audio Analog Stereo" which is my default Output Device/Sink.