ALSA: Set my default Sound Card ^{[27 Feb 2010]}

Get system informations

If you want to check out how many sound cards you kernel finds in your system:

$ cat /proc/asound/cards

To get more details

$ cat /proc/asound/devices

Set defaults

If you want to set your sound defaults, first take a look here  http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Asoundrc. Everything works around this conf file; it could be /etc/asound.conf for a wide system configuration or ~/.asoundrc for a specific user configuration.

A fast Example

Here briefly how to set your second sound card as primary. Get infos:

$ cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [A0x00a0x0aa    ]: USB-Audio - USB Device 0x00a:0x0aa
                      USB Device 0x00a:0x0aa at usb-0000:00:00.0-0, high speed
 1 [SI7012         ]: ICH - SiS SI7012
                      SiS SI7012 with CMI9761A+ at irq 18

Create a system conf file:

# > /etc/asound.conf

To set card #1 SiS SI7012 as the primary card, just paste into /etc/asound.conf the text below:

defaults.ctl.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.timer.card 1