Ever had a question about Linux but felt too afraid to ask? Well now’s your chance, ask any question about Linux, no matter how noob or repeated it is, and I and others will help answer them.
Previous noob question thread: https://lemmy.ml/post/14261893
I’m on Linux mint 22 and my audio outputs don’t change automatically. When I plug in USB headphones, audio won’t output to them unless I manually change it in settings.
Also, why can’t I interact with the panel applets (on the right side) while I’m in game? For example: I’m playing a game, I plug in my headphones, I have to manually change the audio output so I hit the “windows” key to bring up the panel, but I can’t interact with any of the applets on the right side of the panel (I can’t select the audio icon and change settings from there). I have to search audio settings in the panel then alt tab to it. It’s really cumbersome
Fun fact: The “Windows key” (or “Command key” for Mac users) has its own generic name: the Super key!
Not trying to be a smartass here; I genuinely find it fascinating! :D
Some distros call it the Meta key.
I didn’t know that. Thanks!
Which distros, out of curiosity?
Fedora KDE does. I think it’s going to go with the DE rather than the distro, I bet Kubuntu also does.
I think dating back to the Space Cadet keyboard, Unix systems recognize 6 modifier keys: Shift, Control, Alt, Super, Meta and Hyper. It is my understanding that they choose to bind either Super or Meta to the “Windows” key (or the octothorpe whatever that thing is called key on Macs) and in practice it’s used as another modifier key, often with Windows-like functionality such as opening the Menu if tapped tacked on.
That is so weird. Haha.
Oh that is interesting. I had seen that used before but didn’t know what it was lol.
Can you try
"pactl load-module module-switch-on-connect"?maybe a silly question bit is mint using pulse audio?
It’s not a silly question; I thought it doesn’t matter because PipeWire supports Pulseaudio.
The latest version of mint (22) is using pipewire now.
It says “no valid command specified”
Did you enter the command line (especially
load-module) correctly?“Pactl load-module” outputs “you have to specify a module name and arguments.”
I duck go’d that command and it seems like it’s for pulseaudio. The latest mint release uses pipewire for the audio server. Is the command different for that?
As I said in earlier comment, please run
"pactl load-module module-switch-on-connect"exactly. Note thatPactlandpactlare different commands and the former is invalid.As the name suggests,
pactlis a command for PulseAudio. PipeWire supports application written for PulseAudio, includingpactl. Try"man pipewire-pulse"to get further info.That seems to have worked. Tbf, your original comment displayed as “pactl load-module module-switch-on-connect” Which indicates 2 seperate commands.