[pulseaudio-discuss] giving custom names to devices

[H.S.]

Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Wed, 25.02.09 12:14, H.S. (hs.samix at gmail.com) wrote:
> 
>> Hello,
>>
>> Is it possible to give custom names to audio devices?
>>
>> Presently the audio devices have long cryptic names listed in the device
>> chooser. If possible I would like give these devices custom user
>> friendly names. For example, my Micorosft LX-3000 USB headset is listed as:
>> ALSA PCM on front:1(USB Audio) via DMA
> 
> Only very old versions of PA created descriptions like these. The

This is on Debian Testing using pulseaudio 0.9.10-3.


> current logic uses the card name information from ALSA and tries to
> avoid any more technical information in that name.
> 
> THe names still suck though because that creates names like "USB-Audio
> - USB Device 0x471:0x311".
> 
> It would be much better if we could use the lspci or lsusb text. That
> information is available via HAL, but I don't see how to get that data
> correctly. i.e. we could go up in the hal tree until we find a
> useful description. But I am a bit afraid that this might cause us to
> take the description from the PCI bridge if the pci devcies connected
> to it lack one.

Regarding the description of devices attached, I have found the
following command to be very useful:
$> aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: AudioPCI [Ensoniq AudioPCI], device 0: ES1371/1 [ES1371 DAC2/ADC]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: AudioPCI [Ensoniq AudioPCI], device 1: ES1371/2 [ES1371 DAC1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: default [Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 ], device 0: USB Audio [USB
Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
$> cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [AudioPCI       ]: ENS1371 - Ensoniq AudioPCI
                      Ensoniq AudioPCI ENS1371 at 0xd400, irq 20
 1 [default        ]: USB-Audio - Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000
                      Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000  at usb-0000:00:1f.4-1,
full speed
$> lsusb
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0409:0056 NEC Corp.
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 045e:070f Microsoft Corp.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 045e:0040 Microsoft Corp. Wheel Mouse Optical
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub


However, I have noticed that the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 webcam's mic
(not connected yet and not shown in the above listing) does not get
listed with a descriptive name, but only with its hex ID.



-- 

Please reply to this list only. I read this list on its corresponding
newsgroup on gmane.org. Replies sent to my email address are just
filtered to a folder in my mailbox and get periodically deleted without
ever having been read.