Sound source switching in alsamixer SOLVED

[Member stevesr0]

Hi,

I understand the failure of easy source switching via alsamixer is a major reason people add in pulseaudio (or pipewire), so this video which showed a way to easily change the source in alsamixer surprised me..

The YouTube video – “Fixing sound on linux” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3J1MPyiJkY), dates back to 2018, so it isn’t new.

The presenter displayed an alsamixer screen which had the headphones selected and then he showed the headphones being changed to another source by using the keyboard keys (without moving horizontally to an adjacent source). Several commenters said thank you, so I am guessing there is some way of doing that, but I never heard of it.

I couldn’t duplicate what he was doing on the screen. Anybody able to do that in alsamixer (or understand how to customize alsamixer to do that)?

stevesr0

• This topic was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by ModdIt.

[Member ModdIt]

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May be easier to learn the mixer from the info you already have and playing with settings rather than an old
video which is well made but may be a bit fast at times.

If you open the mixer and tap F1 you will get a list of keyboard commands for the current installed alsamixer
F6 gives you a switchable list of sources

You can call the full manual by entering man alsamixer in the terminal

If worried abrout breaking a working setup learn to use the keyboard with a live stick rather than installed system.

To change from Internal, i.e. board sound to a plugged or external sound card you will need to make a BIOS setting to,
disable the internal card.

[Member stevesr0]

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Hi Moddit,

Thanks for response.

I have used alsamixer for years. I do understand that the sound card chooser in alsamixer (F6) shows the settings for the different cards. However, it doesn’t change the source the browser uses for sounds. I have tried this today and confirmed that. Whether I launch Firefox (updated today) from the menu or from the terminal (apulse firefox) makes no difference.

The sound chooser apt in the menu (and presumably in the control centre) DOES change the source tho.

BUT, my question was about the ability to change the playback from one type to another WITHOUT changing the source sound card. The video shows ONE playback device and the narrator casually “flips” that one playback device to another. On my alsamixer, the internal sound card shows both a headphone and a speaker tab next to each other and using the SPACE bar doesn’t “flip” anything. (BTW, thanks for suggesting I look at F1 – I either didn’t know or forgot that the space bar was supposed to enable some kind of switching. When I F6’d the sound card to the headset, I was able to affect the microphone setting with the space bar.)

Anyway, since the sound card chooser works, the failure of alsamixer is unimportant. (I am curious what the sound card chooser is doing differently than the alsamixer. But that is for another time.)

This can be marked solved…

stevesr0

[Member ModdIt]

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The manual says
SPACE enables recording for the current channel. If any other channels
have recording enabled, they will have their recording function dis‐
abled first. This only works for valid input channels, of course.

F6 or S keys.
will show a list of available sound cards to choose from, and an entry
to enter the mixer device name by hand.

Maybe long ago when the referenced video was made space bar was mapped to the card
select selection function differently,
now S for Select which seems more logical.

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