How to quickly switch between speaker and headphone sound?

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wolfv
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:07 am

How to quickly switch between speaker and headphone sound?

Post by wolfv »

I receive phone calls on my PC, so I need to quickly switch from speakers to headphones.
I guess LXDE has no way of switching speaker-headphone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_ ... plications lists many ALSA GUI applications:
gnome-alsamixer (using GTK+), kmix, xfce4-mixer, lxpanel, qashctl, pavucontrol, alsamixergui (using FLTK)
What works on LXDE? :?:

I don't need mixers and prefer simple.
I am running LXDE on Fedora 26 Workstation, Linux kernel 4.11

Thank you.
drooly
Posts: 791
Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2013 6:45 am

Re: How to quickly switch between speaker and headphone sound?

Post by drooly »

in a terminal:
try alsamixer.
can you find and produce the desired action?
if so, you can write a shell script that toggles that with amixer (man amixer).

PS:
this should actually happen automatically when you plug the headphones in?
wolfv
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:07 am

Re: How to quickly switch between speaker and headphone sound?

Post by wolfv »

Oh my, I did not know that "alsamixer" was a command. That opens up a whole new world.
From inside alsamixer, moving the "Master" (volume I assume) up & down did not effect the sound level.
I could not turn on the headphones, but maybe I am doing it wrong.

Plug and unplug the headphones made no difference; the speakers always on, and headphones off.
The headphones normally stay plugged into my PC.
I do not plug and unplug the headphones because the PC is in a difficult-to-reach location.

I should have mentioned, my speakers are USB, the headphones are TRS.

When the PC runs on Gnome, I am able to switch between:
* Digital Output (S/PDIF) (USB AUDIO)
* Analog Output (USB AUDIO)
* Headphones (Built-in Audio)

From LXDE terminal:

Code: Select all

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC283 Analog [ALC283 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: AUDIO [USB  AUDIO], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
From LXDE terminal:

Code: Select all

$ lspci -v
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT DRAM Controller (rev 09)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: hsw_uncore

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 45
	Memory at f7800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
	Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
	I/O ports at f000 [size=64]
	[virtual] Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: i915
	Kernel modules: i915

00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT HD Audio Controller (rev 09)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 48
	Memory at f7c34000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
	Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series USB xHCI HC (rev 04) (prog-if 30 [XHCI])
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 43
	Memory at f7c20000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd

00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series HECI #0 (rev 04)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 46
	Memory at f7c3e000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: mei_me
	Kernel modules: mei_me

00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I218-V (rev 04)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 44
	Memory at f7c00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]
	Memory at f7c3c000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
	I/O ports at f080 [size=32]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: e1000e
	Kernel modules: e1000e

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series HD Audio Controller (rev 04)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 47
	Memory at f7c30000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
	Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series USB EHCI #1 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23
	Memory at f7c3b000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series LPC Controller (rev 04)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: lpc_ich
	Kernel modules: lpc_ich

00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode] (rev 04) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 42
	I/O ports at f0d0 [size=8]
	I/O ports at f0c0 [size=4]
	I/O ports at f0b0 [size=8]
	I/O ports at f0a0 [size=4]
	I/O ports at f060 [size=32]
	Memory at f7c3a000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: ahci

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series SMBus Controller (rev 04)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 2054
	Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 18
	Memory at f7c39000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
	I/O ports at f040 [size=32]
	Kernel driver in use: i801_smbus
	Kernel modules: i2c_i801
drooly
Posts: 791
Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2013 6:45 am

Re: How to quickly switch between speaker and headphone sound?

Post by drooly »

wolfv wrote:I should have mentioned, my speakers are USB, the headphones are TRS.
what's TRS?
also i'm surprised the usb speakers even work without pulseaudio.
wolfv
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:07 am

Re: How to quickly switch between speaker and headphone sound?

Post by wolfv »

drooly wrote: what's TRS?
Analog headphone jack, three-contact versions are known as TRS connectors, where T stands for "tip", R stands for "ring" and S stands for "sleeve".
Pictures are on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)
ericfigg
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2017 5:52 pm

Re: How to quickly switch between speaker and headphone sound?

Post by ericfigg »

what's TRS?
Hello there,
I would like to tell you that TRS (Tip-Ring-Sleeve) connectors are known by many different names, some of which are confusing or just plain wrong. Common names include Phone plug. Phone jack. Headphone jack.
Thanks
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