I have installed Ubuntu Karmic on my machine for a period of time,and I need to re-configure my sound every-time I restart my machine because the sound was muted.Following is what I did to fix this problem.

Run this command in terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/alsa-utils

find out following section and add “#” to annotate:

mute_and_zero_level()
{
{ [ "$1" ] && [ "$CARDOPT" ] ; } || bugout
amixer $CARDOPT -q set “$1″ “0%” mute 2>&1 | filter_amixer_output || :
return 0
}

#unmute_and_set_level()
#{
# { [ "$2" ] && [ "$CARDOPT" ] ; } || bugout
# amixer $CARDOPT -q set “$1″ “$2″ unmute 2>&1 | filter_amixer_output || :
# return 0
#}

Close and save.