Provided by: alsa-utils_1.2.6-1ubuntu1_amd64 bug

NAME

       alsactl - advanced controls for ALSA soundcard driver

SYNOPSIS

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

       alsactl monitor <card # or id>

       alsactl [clean] <card # or id or device> [[control identifiers]]

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

   Introduction
       The  <card> argument is optional. If no soundcards are specified, setup for all cards will
       be saved, loaded or monitored.

   store <card>
       This  command  saves  the  current  driver  state  for  the  selected  soundcard  to   the
       configuration file.

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

   nrestore <card>
       This command is like restore, but it notifies  also  the  daemon  to  do  new  rescan  for
       available soundcards.

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

   daemon
       This command manages to save periodically the sound state.

   rdaemon
       This command is like daemon but restore the sound state at first.

   kill <cmd>
       This  command  notifies  the  daemon  to  do  the  specified  operation   (quit,   rescan,
       save_and_quit).

   monitor <card>
       This command is for monitoring the events received from the given control device.

   clean <card> [filter]
       This command cleans the controls created by applications.

       The optional element identifiers are accepted as a filter. One extra argument is parsed as
       an element identifiers.

       Example: alsactl clean 0 "name='PCM'" "name='Mic Phantom'"

   dump-state
       This command dumps the current state (all cards) to stdout.

   dump-cfg
       This command dumps the current  configuration  (all  cards)  to  stdout.   Note  that  the
       configuration hooks are evaluated.

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.

       -a, --config-dir
              Select  the  boot  /  hotplug  ALSA  configuration directory to use. The default is
              /var/lib/alsa.

       -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, restore and init 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.

       -U, --no-ucm
              Skip  the UCM init even if available. It may be useful for the test the legacy init
              configuration.

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)