[pulseaudio-discuss] dynamic loading for ALSA devices

[Jon Smirl]

I have asound.conf setup to always pass everything to pulse.

pcm.!default {
    type pulse
}

ctl.!default {
    type pulse
}

And I've been statically loading the pulse drivers.

load-module module-alsa-sink sink_name=mb_out device=hw:0
load-module module-alsa-source source_name=mb_in device=hw:0
load-module module-alsa-sink sink_name=usb_out rate=48000 channels=6 device=hw:1
load-module module-alsa-source source_name=usb_in rate=48000
channels=2 device=hw:1

Can I set pulse up so that I don't need to statically load the alsa
drivers? I'm testing various USB audio devices and I may have one, two
or even three plugged in at once. I'd like to have the device
automatically create source/sinks for all of my ALSA hardware devices.

/proc/asound/cards
 0 [ICH5           ]: ICH4 - Intel ICH5
                      Intel ICH5 with AD1980 at irq 20
 1 [PSC805         ]: USB-Audio - Philips PSC805
                      Philips Electronics Philips PSC805 at
usb-0000:00:1d.1-1, full speed

Is there a way to create alias ALSA names for pulse sinks? So instead
of setting the environment variable PULSE_SINK=usb_out I could go into
vlc's preferences and find a usb_out ALSA device?

-- 
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl at gmail.com