How To: Swap between Soundcards in Linux

r3dux | February 4, 2009

Slap the following into a terminal:

asoundconf set-default-card [name of card]

But how do I find out the TRUE NAME of any soundcards are currently recognised so I can fully PWN them I hear you cry? Why that would be:

aplay -l [lower case "L", not "1"]

And if you want to see what output formats are supported by all recognised cards (Stereo [2], 4.0, 4.1, 5.1 etc etc) use:

aplay -L

Just don’t forget that the new default card will only be used for things opened after you issue the command, so to swap and get sound in a browser already running you’d need to restart it.

Also, if you want to test your speakers, use the cryptically named command “speaker-test”, i.e.:

speaker-test -l1 -twav -c6

Switch descriptions (–help for more): 1 loop, use an inbuild sample of a lady saying “Front left, Front Right, Center” etc, and use 6 channels (i.e. 5.1 sound – front left/right, back left/right, center and subwoofer (LFE))

Happy days…

Update: GUI version? How about asoundconf-gtk.. Lovely job.