linux sound system instability

[Jude DaShiell]

I am nearly certain even for command line users of Linux the linux sound 
system has some instability in it to this day.
I found out about this by using usb speakers on an archlinux box and I 
update regularly.  It is possible to use usb speakers however you'll need 
to know where your non-default speakers are inside of alsamixer and choose 
those and then exit out of alsamixer.  I did it with the f6 key once 
alsamixer was started then used the down-arrow to get off the default then 
hit enter to select.  Then I hit escape to close alsamixer and I did this 
as root and once done I ran amixer sset Master unmute then I ran alsactl 
store and then rebooted.  What happens afterwards even if the computer 
comes up talking is that the alsa sound system gets overwritten by 
something in the system and on some reboots, I come up with no working 
sound system.  The system is forcibly switched back to its default 
speakers which are no longer connected to the system.  One of these days 
maybe the operating system will improve to the point where those with 
ownership of hardware are actually presumed to know what system settings 
they need and Linux or some part of it will not second guess the hardware 
owners and change settings to incorrect values.  Not this year though.



jude <jdashiel at shellworld.net> Twitter: @jdashiel