1. Upgrading ALSA needs compiling so the first thing we need to do is install the necessary tools to compile along with the kernel headers. Open a terminal and paste the following 2 commands:

sudo apt-get -y install build-essential ncurses-dev gettext xmlto
sudo apt-get -y install linux-headers-`uname -r`

2. Use the terminal to navigate to your home folder and download the ALSA files:

cd ~
wget ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver/alsa-driver-1.0.20.tar.bz2
wget ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/lib/alsa-lib-1.0.20.tar.bz2
wget ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/utils/alsa-utils-1.0.20.tar.bz2

3. Creating the necessary folders and unpack the downloaded ALSA packages. Open a terminal and paste the following commands:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/src/alsa
cd /usr/src/alsa
sudo cp ~/alsa* .

and then, to unpack:

sudo tar xjf alsa-driver*
sudo tar xjf alsa-lib*
sudo tar xjf alsa-utils*

4. Now we can start compiling each component:

a) alsa-driver:

cd alsa-driver*
sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install

b) alsa-lib:

cd ../alsa-lib*
sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install

c) alsa-utils:

cd ../alsa-utils*
sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install

5. Now you may want to removed the downloaded ALSA files, as they are not needed anymore:

rm -f ~/alsa-driver*
rm -f ~/alsa-lib*
rm -f ~/alsa-utils*

That's it! You now need to restart your computer and after doing so, your computer should have ALSA 1.0.20 installed. Again, you can verify this by running the following command in a terminal:

cat /proc/asound/version

Also, you may want to change your sound settings to Alsa ( System –> Preferences -> Sound, change auto detect to ALSA)