[sound] using extra output jacks

Dusty · 2006-07-22 23:29:14

Hi guys,

I have an interesting question for anyone who might know a little about alsa sound configuration and such. Basically, my motherboard has six 1/8" jacks for sound. I don't really know what they all do, its something called surround sound, I guess, which I couldn't care less about, I've just got a couple measly speakers connected to an old old subwoofer which is connected to the line out on the motherboard. Further, I've got a microphone connected te the mic jack, and my guitar connected to line-in. I've managed to get all three to work for me as I desire.

Problem is, I also have a pair of headphones I'd like to connect with the microphone for skype and such. Every time I want to switch from external speakers to headphones or vice versa, I have to find the back of my computer and manual unplug the one from 'line out' and plug the other in. This is a pain and also easy to forget to do. I've considered inserting some kind of switch or splitter or some crap in there, but I'd like to do it in software.

Now here's the thing. I have these three extra output jacks, center and rear and some other crap. I was wondering if it would be possible to plug the headphones into one of these and have the same sound that is played on line-out to come out on the headphones, and ALSO would permit me to mute either the main speakers or the headphones by muting one of those mysterious volume controls in alsamixer.

This seems like a kind of weird thing to do, does anybody know if I could have an asound.rc that could do something like this... and also not disable dmix on me. Am I asking too much of those extra slots on my motherboard?

I can provide extra configuration info as needed, I just don't know what command I would type... something with amixer I'm sure.

Thanks for any ideas,
Dusty

Dusty · 2006-07-23 17:44:41

I'm assuming that isn't possible, does anybody have any suggestions for how else I could solve this irritation?

Dusty

Arch Linux

#1 2006-07-22 23:29:14

[sound] using extra output jacks

#2 2006-07-23 17:44:41

Re: [sound] using extra output jacks

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