NAME

       alsactl - advanced controls for ALSA soundcard driver

SYNOPSIS

       alsactl [options] [store|restore|init] <card # or id or device>

       alsactl monitor <card # or id>

DESCRIPTION

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

COMMANDS

       store saves the current driver state for the selected soundcard to the configuration file.

       restore  loads  driver  state  for  the selected soundcard from the configuration file. If
       restoring fails (eventually partly), the init action is called.

       nrestore is like restore, but it notifies also the daemon to do new rescan  for  available
       soundcards.

       init  tries  to  initialize  all devices to a default state. If device is not known, error
       code 99 is returned.

       daemon manages to save periodically the sound state.

       rdaemon like daemon but restore the sound state at first.

       kill notifies the daemon to do the specified operation (quit, rescan, save_and_quit).

       monitor is for monitoring the events received from the given control device.

       If no soundcards are specified, setup for all cards will be saved, loaded or monitored.

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              Help: show available flags and commands.

       -d, --debug
              Use debug mode: a bit more verbose.

       -v, --version
              Print alsactl version number.

       -f, --file
              Select the configuration file to use. The default is /var/lib/alsa/asound.state.

       -l, --lock
              Use the file locking to serialize the concurrent access to  the  state  file  (this
              option is default for the global state file).

       -L, --no-lock
              Do  not  use  the file locking to serialize the concurrent access to the state file
              (including the global state file).

       -O, --lock-state-file
              Select the state lock file path.

       -F, --force
              Used with restore command.  Try to restore the matching control elements as much as
              possible.  This option is set as default now.

       -g, --ignore
              Used  with store and restore commands. Do not show 'No soundcards found' and do not
              set an error exit code when soundcards are not installed.

       -P, --pedantic
              Used with restore command.   Don't  restore  mismatching  control  elements.   This
              option was the old default behavior.

       -I, --no-init-fallback
              Don't  initialize  cards  if restore fails.  Since version 1.0.18, alsactl tries to
              initialize the card with the restore operation as  default.   But  this  can  cause
              incompatibility with the older version.  The caller may expect that the state won't
              be touched if no state file exists.  This option takes the restore behavior back to
              the older version by suppressing the initialization.

       -r, --runstate
              Save  restore  and  init  state  to  this  file. The file will contain only errors.
              Errors are appended with the soundcard id to the end of file.

       -R, --remove
              Remove runstate file at first.

       -E, --env #=#
              Set  environment  variable  (useful  for  init   action   or   you   may   override
              ALSA_CONFIG_PATH  to  read different or optimized configuration - may be useful for
              "boot" scripts).

       -i, --initfile
              The configuration file for init. By default, PREFIX/share/alsa/init/00main is used.

       -p, --period
              The store period in seconds for the daemon command.

       -e, --pid-file
              The pathname to store the process-id file in the HDB UUCP format (ASCII).

       -b, --background
              Run the task in background.

       -s, --syslog
              Use syslog for messages.

       -n, --nice
              Set the process priority (see 'man nice')

       -c, --sched-idle
              Set the process scheduling policy to idle (SCHED_IDLE).

       -D, --ucm-defaults
              Execute also the 'defaults'  section  from  the  UCM  configuration.  The  standard
              behaviour is to execute only 'once' section.

FILES

       /var/lib/alsa/asound.state  (or  whatever  file  you  specify with the -f flag) is used to
       store current settings for your soundcards. The settings include all the  usual  soundcard
       mixer  settings.   More importantly, alsactl is capable of controlling other card-specific
       features that mixer apps usually don't know about.

       The configuration file is generated automatically by running alsactl  store.  Editing  the
       configuration   file   by  hand  may  be  necessary  for  some  soundcard  features  (e.g.
       enabling/disabling automatic mic gain, digital output, joystick/game  ports,  some  future
       MIDI routing options, etc).

SEE ALSO

        amixer(1), alsamixer(1), aplay(1), alsactl_init(7)

BUGS

       None known.

AUTHOR

       alsactl     is    by    Jaroslav    Kysela    <perex@perex.cz>    and    Abramo    Bagnara
       <abramo@alsa-project.org>. This document is by Paul Winkler <zarmzarm@erols.com>.

                                           07 May 2014                                 ALSACTL(1)