File /etc/pulse/default.pa hardware-profiled

Easy has hardware-profiling for etc/asound.conf and /etc/asound.state. What this means is that the files are backed up for each hardware configuration. So if Easy on a USB-stick is booted on a different computer, or if the audio hardware is changed on the same computer, the correct file will be used.

You should be able to bootup on any computer, and if you have previously configured the audio, those settings will be automatically used.

However, /etc/pulse/default.pa has so far missed out on this profiling. In my Lenovo PC, currently have this as the last two lines of default.pa:

set-default-sink alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo
load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,3

...these lines were written by /usr/sbin/mscw. Obviously, this is most likely to be wrong when bootup on a different computer, or if the audio hardware is changed on the same computer.

I have now hardware-profiled default.pa. The file is backed up as /etc/pulse/default.pa.<hardware profile>, where the "<hardware profile>" is a string calculated from the current audio hardware. On my Lenovo, it is "0+pci+8086:a348".

There are two scripts involved, /etc/init.d/10alsa and /usr/sbin/mscw. The former is the one that calculates the current hardware-profile, and restores a backed-up default.pa if it exists.

Next thing I want to investigate is when bootup and sound is muted. Some people have reported being confused by this. There are various ways to unmute -- for example, middle-button mouse click on the sound icon in the tray toggles mute/unmute. Anyway, I will endeavour to get it to always come up as unmuted.  

Tags: easy