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Durden

Member

Registered: 2011-06-19

Posts: 261

[SOLVED] KDE 4 + PulseAudio help

Hey there,

So audio works perfectly in Gnome 3 and Cinnamon. KDE on the other hand, I get audio but I can't easily change between audio outputs. I have three audio outputs, my built in on board sound card, my USB headset and the nVidia HDMI. I disabled the HDMI audio because I do not use it. I can get audio through the two remaining interfaces without a problem, the problem occurs when I try to set a default interface, so my headset for example. Certain apps however ignore this setting, such as spotify from AUR and games I launch from Steam (linux native version).

Kmix did nothing for me, wouldnt even allow me to set the default reliable so I installed veromix from AUR which seems to be better, at least now I can assign an output on a per app basis but still, some new apps ignore my default settings which is the headset.

I set this in System Settings > Multimedia > Audio and Video Settings. Every section is set the same with my headset as default.

This happened when I tried under Plasma 5 also but due to bugs I reverted to KDE 4. Additionally KDE doesn't seem to want to hold on to my volume settings.

Hope someone has some insight on this. I'm sure it's something I'm missing but sure is annoying.

Last edited by Durden (2015-05-22 14:48:31)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,768

Re: [SOLVED] KDE 4 + PulseAudio help

Multimedia Settings in KDE only pertain to Phonon (usually KDE applications) (although this is intended to be changed from what I know) . To set a global default device for pulseaudio you should set that either in your default.conf, or use something that directly manipulates the pulseaudio default device (usually pavucontrol is recommended for this, or

pacmd set-default-sink SINKNAME

).

Regarding the volumes not being kept, I can't reproduce that, I can change the streams and that will be saved for each of the applications (or are you refering to notification volumes? that's a somewhat known bug). Also Kmix does have support for switching streams around, just right click one and you will be given the option of switching it to a different sink.

Soukyuu

Member

Registered: 2014-04-08

Posts: 854

Re: [SOLVED] KDE 4 + PulseAudio help

You can actually move apps between devices in kmix, but the UI is a bit broken (edit: or rather, unintuitive). Open playback streams, then rightclick on one of them and select "move -> your device".
Otherwise, just install/use pavucontrol and move the apps to the device you need.

Last edited by Soukyuu (2015-05-22 11:45:01)

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[ Arch x86_64 | linux | Framework 13 | AMD Ryzen™ 5 7640U | 32GB RAM | KDE Plasma Wayland ]

Durden

Member

Registered: 2011-06-19

Posts: 261

Re: [SOLVED] KDE 4 + PulseAudio help

Thanks guys. That solves some of my issues. I'll have to poke around on the volume thing but it's probably just something I messed up. Appreciate the help.