Hello everyone, I got a New sound card (Soundblaster g6) and use it under xubuntu 22.04

The problem is that the default settings of the card are not usable for my use case. For example, the capture device is always set to line-in (instead of external mic) whenever i boot or replug the device.

I changed the settings with alsamixer to my likings and stored the .state file in my ~/.config/ folder When i run restore after reboot all is good. Unfortunatley not for long as the cards keeps going back to its default settings once in a while (sometimes every minute)

I try to solve this with a bash script that restores every 60seconds.

My question is how do i make my stored .state file to the default the card resets to? So i dont have to restore every 60 seconds.

  • @mvirts
    2•1 year ago

    Are you running pulse audio or pipe wire? My best guess is some other software is unaware of the also state and resetting it.

    • Max-P
      2•1 year ago

      It’s Xubuntu 22.04 so most likely PulseAudio.

      Unless you’re using Arch or Gentoo or similar distros that come with nothing by default, it’s pretty much going to have PA or PW.

      I don’t understand how people always end up messing with ALSA when we haven’t used ALSA directly by default on any mainstream distro for nearly a decade. Especially with PipeWire around, ALSA should essentially treated like a low level API you don’t mess with unless you have a kiosk application that’s gonna take exclusive direct use of ALSA. Even ALSA plugins like dmix/dsnoop are wildly outdated and buggy with modern applications, if they even still support using ALSA directly. Messing with ALSA is a recipe for pain especially if you’re not intimate with it. There’s very, very few reasons to do anything with ALSA these days.

      The correct solution is to just select the correct profile from the sound menu, or change it from pavucontrol. That’s it, it’s that simple.

      • @[email protected]OP
        1•1 year ago

        I wish it would work with pacucontrol, but it dies not give me the external mic Option for the inputs. Alsa does. See my parallel comment.

        • @mvirts
          2•1 year ago

          Have you checked the configuration tab on pavucontrol? You can usually change how the card is setup there.

    • @[email protected]OP
      2•1 year ago

      After some more testing, I think this is indeed the case. The problem is that the device has two input channels (“line-in”, " external mic"). In alsamixer i can select both as “PCM capture source” (from here) However, the input tab of pavucontrol, i can only select “line in”. I switched through all available profiles for the card. But the dropdown only always show “line-in”

      Any ideas?

  • @[email protected]
    1•1 year ago

    Yo dude I have a soundblasterx g6 too, I had this problem too where the sound card disconnected and reconnected as an output devices everytime, I have resolved the problem by changing this setting in the soundblaster commander under windows.

    There is no equivalent driver for linux, at least for what I know, but I’m trying my best to resolve the issue by reverse engineering it.

    For the mic problem I use a bash script on startup that change the mic to the one of the sound card.