Arch Linux

crabmarkjellozest

Member

Registered: 2010-07-09

Posts: 20

Switching audio output device without pulseaudio

I frequently use a USB sound card with a pair of headphones, which had been playing nicely with Gnome and Pulseaudio. Gnome provides a GUI to switch between output devices which seems to work well, but requires Pulseaudio. Long story short, I'm in the middle of switching away from Gnome to a lighter WM setup and I have everything working but am not able to figure out how to switch between sound cards on the fly. I don't want to keep a bunch of Gnome dependencies just for this.

I tried a "slots" configuration (http://alsa.opensrc.org/MultipleCards#T … .22_method) which set my USB card to slot 0 and my built in Intel audio to slot 1. This got my USB card working when it's plugged in, but now I get no sound at all when it's unplugged. I've checked the volume settings with "alsamixer -c 1" and everything is unmuted and loud, but still nothing.

Shouldn't the system fall back on card 1 if card 0 is unplugged? How can I make this happen?

Thanks.

jlindgren

Member

Registered: 2011-02-27

Posts: 260

Re: Switching audio output device without pulseaudio

I haven't tried the slots method.  I keep two separate asound.conf's around for analog and HDMI output and use a script to switch between them.  Clunky, and it means I have restart whatever music/video player I'm using at the moment, but it works.

GogglesGuy

Member

From: Rocket City

Registered: 2005-03-29

Posts: 610

Website

Re: Switching audio output device without pulseaudio

I use asoundconf: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=23382

jlindgren

Member

Registered: 2011-02-27

Posts: 260

Re: Switching audio output device without pulseaudio

I use asoundconf: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=23382

That still requires restarting running applications for the change to take effect, no?