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WinnerWind

Member

From: Bangalore, India

Registered: 2024-09-07

Posts: 27

Website

[SOLVED] Setting up custom sound themes.

Hi!
I have prepared several .oga files to serve as substitutes to some of the (quite frankly) ugly sounding sounds in the freedesktop theme. Instead of creating my own sound theme, I have decided to modify

/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/

, replacing all the sounds I don't like to the ones I prepared. I have to do it this way, because my DE, Budgie, does not support sound themes natively.
After replacing the files, I have noticed that the ones that I have replaced do not play at all. For example, I have replaced

power-plug.oga

with my own sound, which triggers when the laptop begins charging again, however, no sound is heard when this event takes place.

Did I do a mistake?

Last edited by WinnerWind (2024-12-12 14:56:10)

pvtvega

Member

Registered: 2024-11-25

Posts: 91

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up custom sound themes.

What did you replace them with? Do the new sound files have the same permissions as the default sound files did?

WinnerWind

Member

From: Bangalore, India

Registered: 2024-09-07

Posts: 27

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up custom sound themes.

I have replaced them with my own custom files. They appear to have the same permissions, as checked from this ls command

$ ls -l /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/
total 648
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 73696 Jul  5 21:55 alarm-clock-elapsed.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17015 Jul  5 21:55 audio-channel-front-center.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15675 Jul  5 21:55 audio-channel-front-left.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19019 Jul  5 21:55 audio-channel-front-right.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17099 Jul  5 21:55 audio-channel-rear-center.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14129 Jul  5 21:55 audio-channel-rear-left.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18791 Jul  5 21:55 audio-channel-rear-right.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17089 Jul  5 21:55 audio-channel-side-left.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17198 Jul  5 21:55 audio-channel-side-right.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18152 Jul  5 21:55 audio-test-signal.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5596 Jul  5 21:55 audio-volume-change.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  8495 Jul  5 21:55 bell.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23142 Jul  5 21:55 camera-shutter.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21073 Jul  5 21:55 complete.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15375 Dec  8 20:35 device-added.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15299 Dec  8 20:35 device-removed.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13577 Dec  8 20:36 dialog-error.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5666 Jul  5 21:55 dialog-information.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 27063 Dec  8 20:36 dialog-warning.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22733 Jul  5 21:55 message-new-instant.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24105 Dec  8 20:36 message.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 30054 Dec  8 20:40 network-connectivity-established.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 28119 Dec  8 20:40 network-connectivity-lost.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 25889 Jul  5 21:55 phone-incoming-call.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  7996 Jul  5 21:55 phone-outgoing-busy.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4792 Jul  5 21:55 phone-outgoing-calling.oga
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    16 Dec  8 20:45 power-plug.oga -> device-added.oga
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    18 Dec  8 20:45 power-unplug.oga -> device-removed.oga
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    18 Dec  8 20:45 screen-capture.oga -> camera-shutter.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33478 Dec  8 20:42 service-login.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14573 Jul  5 21:55 service-logout.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  6849 Jul  5 21:55 suspend-error.oga
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 38223 Jul  5 21:55 trash-empty.oga
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    18 Dec  8 20:45 window-attention.oga -> dialog-warning.oga
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    18 Dec  8 20:45 window-question.oga -> dialog-warning.oga

Note that the stuff modified on Dec 8 are by me.

I am not exactly sure how to attach the audio files themselves. Will a filegarden link do?

pvtvega

Member

Registered: 2024-11-25

Posts: 91

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up custom sound themes.

Are the new files encoded the same as the source files? If you have ffmpeg installed you can use:

ffprobe /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/your_sound_file.oga

to check a source file and your replacement files. The output will be something like:

Input #0, ogg, from '/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message.oga':
  Duration: 00:00:00.31, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 268 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: vorbis, 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 192 kb/s

where "vorbis" is the codec in this case.

WinnerWind

Member

From: Bangalore, India

Registered: 2024-09-07

Posts: 27

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up custom sound themes.

They appear to be quite different. I made a backup of the freedesktop sound theme before starting, so I could compare them rather easily.

Input #0, ogg, from '/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop-backup/stereo/network-connectivity-established.oga':
  Duration: 00:00:00.22, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 313 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: vorbis, 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 192 kb/s

Input #0, ogg, from '/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/network-connectivity-established.oga':
  Duration: 00:00:00.96, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 250 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: flac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16
      Metadata:
        encoder         : Lavc58.134.100 flac

Also, I noticed that the sound doesn't play with paplay. I have no idea why this is happening.

$ paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop-backup/stereo/network-connectivity-established.oga
<sound plays, no output>

$ sudo paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/network-connectivity-established.oga 
Failed to open audio file.

Weirdly, they play in VLC, but not via paplay. Spooky. Well, I'm going to try to re-encode these and I'll post an update.

WinnerWind

Member

From: Bangalore, India

Registered: 2024-09-07

Posts: 27

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up custom sound themes.

Update
Re-encoded all my wav source files with this small script I made

for file in *.wav; do   ffmpeg -i "$file" -af volume=0.2 -c:a libvorbis -b:a 128k -ar 44100 "${file%.wav}.oga"; done

Now my custom SFX plays when the audio is plugged in and out. Thank you! This thread is done.

EDIT : The volume part can be modified in case you want a louder sound.

Last edited by WinnerWind (2024-12-12 14:59:05)