On 03/30/2012 09:34 AM, Alex Schuster wrote:
> walt writes:
> 
>> 00:01.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI BeaverCreek
>> HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6500D and 6400G-6600G series] Subsystem: Lenovo
>> Device 3625 Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
>> 	Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
>>
>> 00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson Azalia
>> Controller (rev 01) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3625
>> 	Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
>> 	Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
> 
> Probably those are HDMI and 'normal' device. I had similar problems on my
> sister's PC.

First, thanks to all who replied.  All the answers were helpful and the
lightbulb is slowly getting brighter :)

I finally looked up HDMI on Wikipedia.  Software is driven by hardware
and this new machine is the only HDMI equipment I've ever used, so I
never had any need to understand it before now.

Now it's clear to me why there are two different sound devices on this
machine -- HDMI is a completely different animal and needs different
harware and drivers.  So, thanks for clearing that up for me.  Maybe
someday I'll actually want to use the HDMI hardware for something ;)

> My solution was to edit /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf, and change
> defaults.ctl.card and defaults.pcm.card from 0 to 1.

I must have the syntax wrong in my alsa.conf, but I finally edited
/usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf and changed the default values to 1.  Now
alsamixer comes up with the right mixer displayed, thanks.

All apps but audacious still use the wrong mixer/card in spite of
the new defaults, though.

I'm finally understanding the value of pulseaudio as a side-effect of
buying this new computer.  Now I'm recompiling everything with the
pulse useflag, something I thought I'd never do :/

I think I can use pulse to solve this problem IIUC.  Here goes :)