[pulseaudio-discuss] how to change default sound card using a command line ?

[Tanu Kaskinen]

la, 2009-11-14 kello 10:04 +0000, Colin Guthrie kirjoitti:
> There is not really such a thing as a "default" audio card in PA. The 
> term we use is usually "fallback" as this more accurately represents 
> what it means. PA remembers each application's preferred device. Thus if 
> you play something in e.g. mplayer and we've never seen an mplayer 
> stream before, we will use the "fallback" device and then save that 
> choice in a little database. The next time mplayer tries to play 
> something, we first look to see if we've got a preferred device for 
> mplayer and if so, we use it. In this second case the "fallback" device 
> is not consulted.
> 
> So, from the command line you can indeed set the fallback sink via the 
> command:
> pacmd set-default-sink index|name
> 
> But this will only really change the "fallback", e.g. all apps that have 
> played before will continue using that device. If you want to change 
> these previously stored preferences, the only tool that supports that 
> currently is the gnome-volume-control. pavucontol does not update the 
> individual application preferences either.
> 
> Hope that clarifies things.

I think you've explained that at least three times by now ;) I created a
wiki page that you can hopefully use as a canned response in the future:
http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/DefaultDevice

Please improve it if needed.

-- 
Tanu Kaskinen