Re: [orca-list] Semi-OT: Selecting Pulse device/profile from the command line

[Willem van der Walt <wvdwalt csir co za>]

Hi Nolan,
I do not have a direct/detailled answer, but, as your devices are USB, 
plugging and unplugging will be picked up as events.
Udev is the system that creates device entries on the fly in /dev.
One can set up udev rules to ensure that a particular device will always 
be created with the same name and in the same way.
As I understand it, one can also have a script run when a particular event 
occurs, with which I suppose, one should be able to set the default sound 
device automatically.
This might just give you a pointer where to start looking.
Regards, Willem


On Fri, 2 Sep 2016, Nolan Darilek wrote:

> I have a semi-complicated soundsetup. My laptop has crappy internal speakers 
> that I don't use unless I have to. It plugs in via USB to a dock, which has 
> an internal sound device that I don't use. To the dock I've connected a 
> Creative USB 5.1 surround system to which my desktop speakers connect, and 
> which sees most of my use. I also run a set of wireless headphones, also 
> connected via USB, which are only occasionally connected and in use.
>
> This complicated setup never gave Windows any issues, but Linux/Pulse just 
> can't handle it. At the moment I have the correct sound setup configured, but 
> if I disconnect my hub then I often don't get sound back when I reconnect it. 
> I've taken to pulling the hub connection, which causes fallback to the 
> internal speakers, at which point I navigate to Settings and reconfigure the 
> right connections.
>
> But lately something is horribly broken and I don't know what. Sometimes, 
> despite arrowing up and down on the device selection combo box, sound goes 
> away and never comes back (I.e. I'd expect it to return at some point if my 
> selection lands back on Internal Speakers, but it never does.) Sometimes, 
> plugging back in the hub doesn't bring back my USB devices (as in, even my 
> USB keyboard doesn't come back) and I can only conclude that rapidly cycling 
> devices is confusing some subsystem or other.
>
> Does anyone have any experience configuring this mess via the command line? 
> It would be useful if I could dump my configuration as it is now, run a 
> terminal command, and restore my preferred configuration without using the 
> GUI. I also want to restore my sound profile to 5.0 Surround, which lately 
> seems to be causing crashes as well. I seem to be locking up Linux entirely 
> such that I can't even switch to another TTY and reboot.
>
> As a semi-related aside, is there a way to navigate settings in combo boxes 
> without selecting them? I'm wondering if I can navigate directly to the 
> device I want and activate it without navigating through, and presumably 
> rapidly cycling, a whole bunch of other devices between my current choice and 
> the one I want. I don't know if that might be causing anything, I'm just 
> annoyed at having to hard shutdown this laptop all of a sudden because I've 
> lost all but my internal speakers.
>
> Thanks.
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