alsactl(1)

1ALSACTL(1)                  General Commands Manual                 ALSACTL(1)
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NAME

6       alsactl - advanced controls for ALSA soundcard driver
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SYNOPSIS

10       alsactl [options] [store|restore|init] <card # or id or device>
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12       alsactl monitor <card # or id>
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DESCRIPTION

16       alsactl  is  used  to  control advanced settings for the ALSA soundcard
17       drivers. It supports multiple soundcards. If  your  card  has  features
18       that  you can't seem to control from a mixer application, you have come
19       to the right place.
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COMMANDS

23       store saves the current driver state for the selected soundcard to  the
24       configuration file.
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26       restore loads driver state for the selected soundcard from the configu‐
27       ration file. If restoring fails (eventually partly), the init action is
28       called.
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30       nrestore  is  like  restore,  but it notifies also the daemon to do new
31       rescan for available soundcards.
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33       init tries to initialize all devices to a default state. If  device  is
34       not known, error code 99 is returned.
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36       daemon manages to save periodically the sound state.
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38       rdaemon like daemon but restore the sound state at first.
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40       kill  notifies  the daemon to do the specified operation (quit, rescan,
41       save_and_quit).
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43       monitor is for monitoring the events received from  the  given  control
44       device.
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46       If  no  soundcards  are  specified,  setup for all cards will be saved,
47       loaded or monitored.
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OPTIONS

51       -h, --help
52              Help: show available flags and commands.
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55       -d, --debug
56              Use debug mode: a bit more verbose.
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59       -v, --version
60              Print alsactl version number.
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63       -f, --file
64              Select  the  configuration  file  to   use.   The   default   is
65              /var/lib/alsa/asound.state.
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68       -l, --lock
69              Use  the  file locking to serialize the concurrent access to the
70              state file (this option is default for the global state file).
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73       -L, --no-lock
74              Do not use the file locking to serialize the  concurrent  access
75              to the state file (including the global state file).
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78       -O, --lock-state-file
79              Select the state lock file path.
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82       -F, --force
83              Used  with restore command.  Try to restore the matching control
84              elements as much as possible.  This option  is  set  as  default
85              now.
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88       -g, --ignore
89              Used with store and restore commands. Do not show 'No soundcards
90              found' and do not set an error exit code when soundcards are not
91              installed.
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94       -P, --pedantic
95              Used  with  restore  command.  Don't restore mismatching control
96              elements.  This option was the old default behavior.
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99       -I, --no-init-fallback
100              Don't initialize cards if restore fails.  Since version  1.0.18,
101              alsactl  tries to initialize the card with the restore operation
102              as default.  But this can cause incompatibility with  the  older
103              version.   The caller may expect that the state won't be touched
104              if no state file exists.  This option takes the restore behavior
105              back to the older version by suppressing the initialization.
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108       -r, --runstate
109              Save  restore and init state to this file. The file will contain
110              only errors.  Errors are appended with the soundcard id  to  the
111              end of file.
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114       -R, --remove
115              Remove runstate file at first.
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118       -E, --env #=#
119              Set  environment  variable  (useful  for  init action or you may
120              override ALSA_CONFIG_PATH to read different or optimized config‐
121              uration - may be useful for "boot" scripts).
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124       -i, --initfile
125              The    configuration   file   for   init.   By   default,   PRE‐
126              FIX/share/alsa/init/00main is used.
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129       -p, --period
130              The store period in seconds for the daemon command.
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133       -e, --pid-file
134              The pathname to store the process-id file in the HDB UUCP format
135              (ASCII).
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138       -b, --background
139              Run the task in background.
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142       -s, --syslog
143              Use syslog for messages.
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146       -n, --nice
147              Set the process priority (see 'man nice')
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150       -c, --sched-idle
151              Set the process scheduling policy to idle (SCHED_IDLE).
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FILES

155       /var/lib/alsa/asound.state  (or  whatever  file you specify with the -f
156       flag) is used to store current settings for your soundcards.  The  set‐
157       tings  include  all  the  usual  soundcard mixer settings.  More impor‐
158       tantly, alsactl is capable of controlling other card-specific  features
159       that mixer apps usually don't know about.
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161       The  configuration  file  is generated automatically by running alsactl
162       store. Editing the configuration file by hand may be necessary for some
163       soundcard features (e.g. enabling/disabling automatic mic gain, digital
164       output, joystick/game ports, some future MIDI routing options, etc).
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BUGS

172       None known.
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AUTHOR

176       alsactl is by  Jaroslav  Kysela  <perex@perex.cz>  and  Abramo  Bagnara
177       <abramo@alsa-project.org>.   This   document   is   by   Paul   Winkler
178       <zarmzarm@erols.com>.
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182                                  07 May 2014                       ALSACTL(1)