alsactl command in Linux with Examples

alsactl is used to control advanced settings for the ALSA(The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) soundcard drivers. It supports multiple soundcards. It helps to get control over the card features that you can’t seem to control from a mixer application.

Syntax:

alsactl [options] [store|restore|init] 

Different Commands and Options

Some of the commands require superuser privilege(sudo) to execute.

1. store: It is used to save the current driver state to the configuration file, for the selected soundcard.
Syntax :

sudo alsactl store

2. restore: It loads the driver state from the configuration file,of the selected soundcard. The init action is called in case the restoring fails due to any reason.
Syntax :

sudo alsactl restore

3. init: It tries to initialize all devices to a default state. It returns 99 error code if the device is not known.
Syntax :

alsactl init

4. –f Option : It is used to select the configuration file which is to be used.The default configuration file is /var/lib/alsa/asound.state.
Syntax :

alsactl store -f /tmp/alsa.state

5. -–help Option : It with print the flags and commands of the alsactl command.
Syntax :

alsactl -help

6. –version Option : It will print the version details of the alsactl command.
Syntax :

alsactl -version