Audio/Sound: Cannot switch between audio devices through KDE

[alanpcbsd]

Summary:
Audio/Sound: Cannot switch between audio devices through KDE.

Version:
Default install of PCBSD 9 RC1 x64 with KDE. Installed from DVD.

Problem Description:
On my computer I have audio out ports on the back for speakers and audio out port on the front for headphones.
PCBSD detects the back interface as pcm0 and the front interface as pcm1:

~> cat /dev/sndstat
FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm: 64bit 2009061500/amd64)
Installed devices:
pcm0: <HDA Analog Devices AD1882 PCM #0 Analog> (play/rec)
pcm1: <HDA Analog Devices AD1882 PCM #1 Analog> (play) d

The provided Sound Configuration tool, Phonon, only shows one Output Device called "default". This equates to pcm0 (the back speaker ports on my pc).
(Phonon is accessed by clicking "PCBSD-BSD Control Panel" --> "System Settings" --> "Multimedia" --> "Phonon").

PCBSD does not appear to provide a method through KDE for showing which actual sound interface is being used, nor a method for changing interfaces.
This means that I cannot easily use the front headphone port on my pc for sound output.

I can manually change the device by setting hw.snd.default_unit to 0 or 1 using sysctl. This requires restarting all applications, including the KDE components such as the Volume Control.
I can also set the default device by adding "hw.snd.default_unit=1" to "/etc/sysctl.conf".

Impact:
Problem may detract from a user friendly desktop experience as it requires manual changes outside the GUI to workaround.

[kmoore134]

This is a known issue at the moment. My hope is to write some nice audio
configuration GUI which can be used from all the WM's to setup sound on
the desktop. This would probably be for 9.1.

[rvc]

This is a known issue at the moment. My hope is to write some nice audio
configuration GUI which can be used from all the WM's to setup sound on
the desktop. This would probably be for 9.1.

till 9.1 stable is released, is there a way to setup sound through terminal commands ? being a newbie, i dont want to do something that will disturb my current configuration.
a manual way to set up sound and other hardware devices (touchpad for example) can be an option to get things going....

video is working fine but without sound ?
here is my sndstat (i can use head phones but not the external speakers)


[rvc@isotope] ~> cat /dev/sndstat
FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm: 64bit 2009061500/amd64)
Installed devices:
pcm0: <HDA Conexant CX20561 (Hermosa) PCM #0 Analog> (play/rec) default
pcm1: <HDA Conexant CX20561 (Hermosa) PCM #1 Analog> (play/rec)
[rvc@isotope] ~>

[rvc]

Atlast i could set the sound working.... came across freebsd link that asked to load snd_driver (i did this instead of the driver that i knew was right) and that did the trick ! snd_driver loaded all the drivers.