{"id":1508,"date":"2008-04-20T02:23:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-20T02:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gleamynode.net\/articles\/1508\/changing-the-default-sound-card-automatically-in-linux"},"modified":"2022-12-28T01:45:55","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T16:45:55","slug":"changing-the-default-sound-card-automatically-in-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vault.motd.kr\/wordpress\/posts\/1508\/changing-the-default-sound-card-automatically-in-linux\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing the default sound card automatically in Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Many people including me usually use a <span class=\"caps\">USB<\/span> sound card or a <span class=\"caps\">USB<\/span> speaker to enjoy noise-free high-fidelity sound. I simply don\u2019t understand why all the main board manufacturers ship with a built-in sound chipset which just sucks. It\u2019s not an exception for all laptops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a non-portable system such as a desktop PC, you usually don\u2019t need to change your default sound card because your <span class=\"caps\">USB<\/span> sound card is always connected. However, it\u2019s a whole different story for a laptop computer. <span class=\"caps\">USB<\/span> sound card is often disconnected and connected again. For example, I connected my <span class=\"caps\">USB<\/span> speaker to the docking station. The expected behaviour is that the default sound card is chosen automatically \u2013 the sound system should be reconfigured so that my <span class=\"caps\">USB<\/span> speaker becomes the default sound card when I dock to the docking station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Currently, there\u2019s no desktop environment that addresses this problem <span class=\"caps\">AFAIK<\/span>, so I wrote a quick and dirty script file that reconfigures the sound system automatically when a new sound card is detected. The script assumes that you are running <span class=\"caps\">HAL<\/span> and <span class=\"caps\">DBUS<\/span>, which are very common in modern Linux distributions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>#!\/bin\/sh\n# Path: \/usr\/local\/bin\/alsa-watch\n\n# Exit if running already.\nif &#91; \"x`pgrep -of 'alsa-watch'`\" != \"x$\" ]; then\n  exit 1\nfi\n\n# Configure the sound card to the default.\n\/usr\/local\/bin\/alsa-reconfigure\n\n# Begin monitering.\n{\ndbus-monitor --system --monitor \"type='signal',path='\/org\/freedesktop\/Hal\/Manager',interface='org.freedesktop.Hal.Manager'\" | while read -r EVT; do\n  echo \"$EVT\" | egrep -qi \"(DeviceAdded|DeviceRemoved)\"\n  if &#91; \"$?\" = '0' ]; then\n    read -r EVT_VAL\n    echo \"$EVT_VAL\" | egrep -qi '(alsa_playback|sound_card)_&#91;0-9]+\"'\n    if &#91; \"$?\" = '0' ]; then\n      # Reconfigure the sound card if a sound card is plugged in or out.\n      \/usr\/local\/bin\/alsa-reconfigure\n    fi\n  fi\ndone\n} &amp;<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>Another required script is <tt>alsa-reconfigure<\/tt>. The following is what I put into the <tt>alsa-reconfigure<\/tt> script. I reset the volume level here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>#!\/bin\/sh\n# Path: \/usr\/local\/bin\/alsa-reconfigure\n# Exit if there's no sound card.\n&#91; -f \/proc\/asound\/cards ] || exit 0\ncat \/proc\/asound\/cards | grep -qi 'no soundcard' &amp;&amp; exit 0\n\n# Prefer USB audio device to other sound cards.\ncat \/proc\/asound\/cards | grep -qi USB-Audio\nif &#91; \"$?\" == \"0\" ]; then\n  CARD=`cat \/proc\/asound\/cards | grep USB-Audio | head -1 | perl -pi -e \"s\/\\s*(&#91;0-9])+.*\/\\1\/\"`\n  USB='y'\nelse\n  CARD=`cat \/proc\/asound\/cards | head -1 | perl -pi -e \"s\/\\s*(&#91;0-9])+.*\/\\1\/\"`\n  USB='n'\nfi\n\n# Update ALSA settings.\necho \"pcm.foo {\n  type dmix\n  slave.pcm \"hw:$CARD\"\n  ipc_key 1024\n}\n\npcm.!default {\n  type plug\n  slave.pcm \"foo\"\n}\n\nctl.!default {\n  type hw\n  card $CARD\n}\n\" > \/etc\/asound.conf\nchmod 644 \/etc\/asound.conf\n\n# Reset the volume. (optional)\nif &#91; \"$USB\" == 'y' ]; then\n  amixer sset 'PCM' 80% > \/dev\/null 2>&amp;1\nelse\n  amixer sset 'Master' 30% > \/dev\/null 2>&amp;1\nfi<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>You could also do something different such as restarting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pulseaudio.org\/\">PulseAudio<\/a> daemon:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>#!\/bin\/sh\n# Path: \/usr\/local\/bin\/alsa-reconfigure\n# Exit if there's no sound card.\n&#91; -f \/proc\/asound\/cards ] || exit 0\ncat \/proc\/asound\/cards | grep -qi 'no soundcard' &amp;&amp; exit 0\n\n# Prefer USB audio device to other sound cards.\ncat \/proc\/asound\/cards | grep -qi USB-Audio\nif &#91; \"$?\" == \"0\" ]; then\n  CARD=`cat \/proc\/asound\/cards | grep USB-Audio | head -1 | perl -pi -e \"s\/\\s*(&#91;0-9])+.*\/\\1\/\"`\nelse\n  CARD=`cat \/proc\/asound\/cards | head -1 | perl -pi -e \"s\/\\s*(&#91;0-9])+.*\/\\1\/\"`\nfi\n\n# Update ALSA settings. (optional if your Linux distribution uses PulseAudio by default)\necho \"pcm.!default {\n  type pulse\n}\n\nctl.!default {\n  type pulse\n}\n\" > \/etc\/asound.conf\n\npkill -f '(^|\/)pulseaudio( |$)' > \/dev\/null 2>&amp;1\nsleep 1\npkill -9 -f '(^|\/)pulseaudio( |$)' > \/dev\/null 2>&amp;1\n\n# Restart PulseAudio daemon\npulseaudio \\\n  --system --daemonize --high-priority --realtime --log-target=syslog \\\n  --disallow-module-loading --disallow-exit \\\n  --resample-method=src-sinc-best-quality --no-cpu-limit -n \\\n  -L \"module-native-protocol-unix auth-anonymous=1\" \\\n  -L \"module-native-protocol-tcp auth-ip-acl=192.168.0.0\/16;127.0.0.0\/8\" \\\n  -L \"module-rescue-streams\" \\\n  -L \"module-alsa-sink device=hw:$CARD\" \\<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>I execute <tt>alsa-watch<\/tt> in my <tt>\/etc\/rc.local<\/tt> file and it works perfectly for me. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many people including me usually use a USB sound card or a USB speaker to enjoy noise-free high-fidelity sound. I simply don\u2019t understand why all the main board manufacturers ship with a built-in sound chipset which just sucks. It\u2019s not an exception for all laptops. In a non-portable system such as a desktop PC, you&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/vault.motd.kr\/wordpress\/posts\/1508\/changing-the-default-sound-card-automatically-in-linux\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&#8594;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<title>Changing the default sound card automatically in Linux &#8212; T&#039;s message of the day<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/vault.motd.kr\/wordpress\/posts\/1508\/changing-the-default-sound-card-automatically-in-linux\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Changing the default sound card automatically in Linux &#8212; T&#039;s message of the day\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many people including me usually use a USB sound card or a USB speaker to enjoy noise-free high-fidelity sound. 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