Provided by: alsa-utils_1.2.11-1ubuntu1_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 info <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.

   info <card>
       This  command  shows  the  general information in the YAML format collected from the given
       control device (sound card).

   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)