"Why doesn't the audio output device change when I set it in the gnome-
sound-properties (g-s-p)?"
I have been seeing this for a while, as far back as dapper, but tabled
looking into it until just now. Changing the output device in g-s-p
affected gnome apps, but not anything non-gnome that used alsa or oss
directly like vlc.
Running strace on g-s-p revealed some files to lookup and google brought
me ubuntu bug #31893 and the two commands below to set the default sound
card for alsa (non-gnome apps) to use:
asoundconf list
asoundconf set-default-card <devicename>
This configures some nice settings in ~/.asoundrc.asoundconf. Looking
at the strace output of g-s-p further shows that ~/.asoundrc.asoundconf
is being open()ed, mmap()ed, read(), close()d and unmmap()ed, but not
written to by g-s-p.
That explains why the sound settings only affected gnome applications
and since these settings are read by the alsa libraries, it is only
checked when each process starts up. Any changes made with asoundconf
will not take affect until after a process using alsa is exited and
started again to get the alsa libs to re-read the config files.
So why isn't g-s-p changing the generic alsa configs? The asoundconf
man page says:
<manpage>
This program is under development. Its features will change without notice
and without preservation of backward compatibility, except insofar as
they are put to use by other components of the Debian and/or Ubuntu operating
systems. (As of this writing the Ubuntu developers have plans to use
asoundconf for setting the value of defaults.pcm.card from the system
sound preferences menu.)
</manpage>
In feisty (or possibly edgy, I have avoided using edgy because I haven't
had much success with that release), they have made the distinction in
g-s-p between "sound events", "music and movies" and "audio
conferencing". The task of finding a way to present configuration
options for a default sound card for regular non-gnome alsa apps will
use and presenting the options in an intuitive way may be difficult.
--
gnome-sound-properties should call asoundconf
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/119033
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Desktop Bugs, which is a bug assignee.
--
desktop-bugs mailing list
desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
