Ubuntu Karmic…audio is shady and useless source names

Question

I've got 3 audio outputs (headphones, speakers, and usb headphones) but the source names in all the video players are pretty useless...Pulse, Alsa, Unix, etc.

Is there an easy way to get more friendly audio output names for those options?

If there's a 2 or 3 step tutorial, that'd be great. A full explanation would be much more helpful than, say, "edit your audio output file". hehe. :-)

Answer 1

The various names "PulseAudio", "ALSA", etc are actually API engines. The equivalent in Windows would be "DirectSound". Usually, they can all talk to your audio hardware. The selection box is for changing the default when one is misbehaving, which is actually pretty rare.

What you need to do is to find the Audio Configuration. In Ubuntu with a GNOME desktop, right-click on the volume control widget and select Open Volumn Control. This will open the mixer. Have an explore of the Playback and Switches tab; it is possible your kernel has figured out your hardware's routing. If not, click Preferences. This is where you set which controls are visible, but remember that they won't all do anything or do anything useful. Once you have turned a few likely looking extra ones on, you will have some extra controls in the Playback and Switches tab.