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How can I set the sound device for a certain application, so when I start it automatically uses that device, even if it is not the default.

A small example of what I want, to avoid confusion:

I would like my TV as the default device for Firefox etc... but when I run my music player (Amarok) I would like it to use built in audio device, without having to change the default device in sound settings.

Here are some things I have tried:

Pulse audio control, this does what I want however, on my system at least, it sound bad and quiet in comparison to alsa, and the volume applet in the status bar does not work for this, so would like to avoid pulse audio.

Changing the device settings in Amarok, this just defaults to the default choice in settings, not to sure why but it seems to want pulse audio not alsa, so not quite what I need

Had a look around alsamixer found nothing in there to set devices.

The important thing here is that I want to use alsa, so I am not looking for alternative.

Command line is an acceptable way of solving this, but I would like a GUI for less competent users to configure there settings easily.

1 Answer 1

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There is no system-wide GUI configuration for this.

Many programs allow to configure the ALSA device name.

ALSA's default hw and default devices, when not given a card number (i.e., not hw:0 but hw), use the ALSA_CARD or ALSA_PCM_CARD environment variables. So you can start your programs with scripts that set these environment variables appropriately.

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  • Can you elaborate on this ? Are you saying its not possible ? What are these programs you mention ? How does this in anyway answer my question ? From your profile you seem knowledgeable on this subject, but I just don't get your point here
    – Mark Kirby
    Apr 23, 2015 at 9:17
  • See environment variables.
    – CL.
    Apr 23, 2015 at 12:39

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