Choosing sound output device in Mint 11 LXDE

[O8h7w]

I started out by asking this in the newbie subforum, but got no answer so I'm reposting it here. A mod would be wise to delete my first thread, it didn't make it all the way to useful.

I can't find the option to change the sound output device in Mint 11 LXDE. The device I want to use instead of the standard inbuilt sound in the laptop is a USB device, which seems to be recognized alright since it shows up in the ALSA-mixer and I can change the volume for it.

My best guess on how to do this is to uncheck the box for the standard sound device in the dialog "Program Preferences" found in the "Edit" menu of the ALSA-mixer. However, changing anything in that dialog doesn't seem to work at all, except for changing the names of the devices.

Have I somehow missed the right menu, somewhere else? Or is there something gone wrong with my mixer?

Many thanks, /O8h7w

[O8h7w]

I actually stumbled upon a solution myself while idling through the forum, that I hadn't found by searching. The original problem in that thread wasn't that closely related, but the solution was eventually provided for me in this post by wyrdoak.

My /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf now contains the following code in the end:

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# I'm preventing inbuilt audio from being loaded as standard sound output
options snd-hda-intel index=-2 model=auto
# And I'm setting USB audio as the standard sound output
options snd-usb-audio index=0

I also commented out a line saying

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options snd-usb-audio index=-2

earlier in that file, but I don't think that matters, does it?

However, I'm still looking for a way to switch this on the fly.

(Yes, I write my code commentary like that to remember I wrote it myself )

[seppalta]

Check out number (18) in Tuning LXDE, which is a link in http://douwil7.100webspace.net/linux/mint.html.

[O8h7w]

I tried installing the gnome-audio package and, by default, it's dependencies. With a mysterious result: the thing don't work at all. The terminal gives a doubled warning and a little GUI box shows up saying "Waiting for the audio system to respond" (or something similar, that quote is translated from Swedish). This is not how it's supposed to work, is it?

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linus@Linus-X220-Mint11 ~ $ sudo gnome-volume-control
[sudo] password for linus: 
Home directory /home/linus not ours.
Home directory /home/linus not ours.
linus@Linus-X220-Mint11 ~ $ 

The ALSA-mixer still exhibits the same problem, can't configure it. I will now try to install the padevchooser, but I don't have high hopes, since that one is for PulseAudio and my system is using ALSA, right?

[O8h7w]

Well, that installed the complete PulseAudio system, of course. And that works, except for the hardware buttons for changing volume on my ThinkPad X220. And that problem is quite a lot worse than having to edit a configuration file and reboot the computer to change output device...

I will try to find a fix for that, if I don't I'll try to find the "real" fix for my original problem. And if neither of those work, I guess I'll look around for yet another audio subsystem... this is fun

[Kendall]

It may be possible to enable the hardware buttons in the Openbox .rc file. I'll check on my X201 and see what I can come up with. Beyond this, I have a neighbor with an X220 and he may be down for some debugging if I ask nicely.

[O8h7w]

That sounds like too far from my knowledge, so I'm very thankful if you come up with a solution. I like this distro, my top pick for now.

Note that the buttons did work with ALSA, so the problem is with routing them to the PulseAudio volume control, rather than having the OS talk nicely with the hardware - as far as I can tell.