4

I like to keep my headphones plugged in, then depending on the situation just switch the audio output as needed. I'm easily able to do this in Windows - my headphones and speakers show up as different devices, and I'm able to switch.

In Ubuntu (Kubuntu 18.04) I can't seem to get this to work. After some fiddling, I found that I can disable Automute in alsamixer, and that way I can have sound coming from both speakers and headphones, but I still can't find a way to choose between them. Pulse audio and the kde settings only show one device (Built-in Audio Analog Stereo).

Edit: I was thinking I could probably keep the headphones plugged in, and use a script to enable/disable automute depending on whether I want to listen to headphones/speakers. But this doesn't work because with automute disabled the speaker volume is way lower.

Edit: output of aplay -l as requested:

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC1220 Analog [ALC1220 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC1220 Digital [ALC1220 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: GoMic [Samson GoMic], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
hoodakaushal
  • 493

2 Answers2

0

To keep headphones plugged in, set auto-mute option in ALSA to off

preferable initial state is to have both speakers and headphones playing audio

Get exact names of ALSA control elements (Case sensitive) from alsamixer or use terminal command:

amixer -c 0

Create launcher buttons to toggle mute on or off on desktop,panel,dock etc

launcher command is

amixer -c 0 [name] toggle

replace [name] with correct name of ALSA element to mute/unmute

nik gnomic
  • 631
0

See my answer for 18.04 - it also works for 16.04.

Once I followed these instructions, my Line Out and Headphones (mine is actually a headset with mic) started appearing separately in the Ubuntu 16.04 'Sound' app whereas before there was only one or the other displayed. I can swap the output device using by clicking on it in the Sound app.

Ubuntu 16.04 'Sound' app

In brief, you need to edit Pulseaudio mixer's configuration files:

  • /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-lineout.conf
  • /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-headphones.conf
Jaydin
  • 1,571