[pulseaudio-discuss] Keeping a USB mic selected when unplugged & plugged in again

[Whit Blauvelt]

Hi,

This is on an Ubuntu 10.4 system, with an internal sound card I don't use at
all, and a USB headset with mic that isn't always plugged in. The goal is,
when it's freshly plugged in, to have it work without extra steps. I have
that working for the earphones, but not the mic.

To get it the USB headset listed as card-0 rather than card-1 I created a
file /etc/modutils/sound_cards with the following:

	alias snd-card-0 snd-usb-audio 
 	alias snd-card-1 snd-via82xx-modem 

That worked, for whatever it's worth. Then in System > Preferences >
PulseAudio Preference (which I think came into the system from something
extra I installed while mucking with this) I went to Simultaneous Output and
enabled that. Then in System > Preferences > Sound > Output I selected
"Simultaneous output to ..." which unlike selecting the single output device
as the USB headset, persists when the headset is unplugged and so works
right away when it's plugged back in.

In System > Preference > Hardware I disabled the internal card (for what
that's worth).

Here's the problem I haven't solved. In System > Preferences > Sound > Input
the listing for the USB device comes back soon after it's plugged in again.
And it's the only listing there. But the thing's not checked! My .pulse
directory has a file, [long-number]-default-source which gains and loses the
USB device's name as it's plugged and unplugged, but that file stays the
same whether it's checked or not.

I can't find where the checked/unchecked status is stored, or how to
hard-code it so the microphone always is selected just as soon as the
headset is plugged in. This is not good when trying to answer a Skype call.
Is there some way to make the microphone default to on? 

Thanks,
Whit