Re: [gentoo-user] Switch between sound cards?

[Grant]

> Grant,
>    If you want to do a complete switch then you would change your USB
>  card to index 0 and restart Als which would make the USB card the
>  default since card 0 is always the default for Alsa. On the other
>  hand, if you wanted to just leave the onboard card as default and send
>  audio from a specific application to the USB card you would tell the
>  application to use hw:1 explicity, either in the command line when you
>  start the app or in an application's config file. On my system I let
>  all my web/browest audio go to the onboard sound card but I send all
>  my CD audio directly to my good card using Aqualung and configuring it
>  from the command line. (Actually in my launcher.)
>
>    to the best of my knowledge there has never been a way to simply
>  switch sound cards on the fly in Alsa. I've requested this sometime
>  back but the developers haven't shown any interest.
>
>  Hope this helps,
>  Mark

Hi Mark,

Changing the index and restarting alsasound would be a great switching
method but I can't get that to work.  No matter which one I set to
index=0 and which to index=1 the sound always comes out of the USB
card.

BTW, what sound card are you using?  Here's mine, it's great:

http://diyparadise.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=82

- Grant


>  > >  > I have a USB sound card and an internal sound card in my laptop.  Is
>  >  >  >  there a way to switch between them while the system is booted?  Is
>  >  >  >  module loading/unloading via modprobe the best way to do it?
>  >  >  >
>  >  >  >  - Grant
>  >  >  >  --
>  >  >  >  gentoo-user@l.g.o mailing list
>  >  >  >
>  >  >  >
>  >  >
>  >  >  Why switch between them when you can use them both at the same time as
>  >  >  hw:0 and hw:1?
>  >
>  >  Thanks Mark.  After studying your config, here is mine:
>  >
>  >  alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
>  >  options snd-hda-intel index=1
>  >  options snd-hda-intel model=acer
>  >
>  >  alias snd-card-1 snd-usb-audio
>  >  options snd-usb-audio index=0
>  >
>  >
>  >  alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
>  >  alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
>  >
>  >
>  >  alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
>  >  alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
>  >  alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
>  >
>  >
>  > options snd cards_limit=2
>  >
>  >  I get sound from the USB card but not from the internal card
>  >  (snd-hda-intel).  How can I tell the system to turn off the USB card
>  >  and turn on the internal card?
>  >
>  >  - Grant
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  >  >  # Alsa 0.9.X kernel modules' configuration file.
>  >  >  # $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-sound/alsa-utils/files/alsa-modules.conf-rc,v
>  >  >  1.4 2004/11/16 01:31:22 eradicator Exp $
>  >  >
>  >  >  # ALSA portion
>  >  >  alias char-major-116 snd
>  >  >
>  >  >  # OSS/Free portion
>  >  >  alias char-major-14 soundcore
>  >  >
>  >  >  ##  ALSA portion
>  >  >  alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
>  >  >  options snd-intel8x0 index=0
>  >  >  alias snd-card-1 snd-hdsp
>  >  >  options snd-hdsp index=1
>  >  >
>  >  >  ##  OSS/Free portion
>  >  >  alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
>  >  >
>  >  >
>  >  >  # OSS/Free portion - card #1
>  >  >  alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
>  >  >  alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
>  >  >  alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
>  >  >  alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
>  >  >  alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
>  >  >
>  >  >  alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
>  >  >  alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
>  >  >  alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
>  >  >
>  >  >  # Set this to the correct number of cards.
>  >  >  options snd cards_limit=2
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