Getting information while having sound issues

_{by <joekamprad>}

Sometimes it is a puzzle to get around with a new soundcard, or getting a mix to work, I give some hints on getting information about devices and system here:

First check if alsamixer is enabled so you can use it as a simple source to solve most mute problems, and get a view of what is available:

Pulseaudio is used by default and here are some tools to solve the most common problems:

GTK GUIs: paprefs and pavucontrol

KF5 plasma applet: kmix and plasma-pa
Xfce4 plugin: xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin, pa-applet-git

Configs are here: ~/.config/pulse/ and can easily reset by removing the files and log in again in the DE (rm -R ~/.config/pulse/) as a normal user.

Pulseaudio is started as a per-user service:

So as normal user:

systemctl --user status pulseaudio.socket

systemctl --user restart pulseaudio.socket

systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.socket

systemctl --user start pulseaudio.socket

Will give status / restart /stop and start for pulseaudio…

Auto-Mute:

If the Mode is enabled, it can cause problems for multiple users:

It can be disabled by using alsamixer.

See http://superuser.com/questions/431079/how-to-disable-auto-mute-mode for more.

To save your current settings as the default options, run alsactl store as root.

Information and configuraion tool for PulseAudio:

pacmd – Reconfigure a PulseAudio sound server during runtime

pacmd --help
pacmd exit
pacmd help
pacmd list-(modules|sinks|sources|clients|cards|samples)
pacmd list-(sink-inputs|source-outputs)
pacmd stat
pacmd info
pacmd load-module NAME [ARGS ...]
pacmd unload-module NAME|#N
pacmd describe-module NAME
pacmd set-(sink|source)-volume NAME|#N VOLUME
pacmd set-(sink-input|source-output)-volume #N VOLUME
pacmd set-(sink|source)-mute NAME|#N 1|0
pacmd set-(sink-input|source-output)-mute #N 1|0
pacmd update-(sink|source)-proplist NAME|#N KEY=VALUE
pacmd update-(sink-input|source-output)-proplist #N KEY=VALUE
pacmd set-default-(sink|source) NAME|#N
pacmd kill-(client|sink-input|source-output) #N
pacmd play-sample NAME SINK|#N
pacmd remove-sample NAME
pacmd load-sample NAME FILENAME
pacmd load-sample-lazy NAME FILENAME
pacmd load-sample-dir-lazy PATHNAME
pacmd play-file FILENAME SINK|#N
pacmd dump
pacmd move-(sink-input|source-output) #N SINK|SOURCE
pacmd suspend-(sink|source) NAME|#N 1|0
pacmd suspend 1|0
pacmd set-card-profile CARD PROFILE
pacmd set-(sink|source)-port NAME|#N PORT
pacmd set-port-latency-offset CARD-NAME|CARD-#N PORT OFFSET
pacmd set-log-target TARGET
pacmd set-log-level NUMERIC-LEVEL
pacmd set-log-meta 1|0
pacmd set-log-time 1|0
pacmd set-log-backtrace FRAMES

  -h, --help                            Show this help
      --version                         Show version
When no command is given pacmd starts in the interactive mode.