Primer

PulseAudio uses the following terminology:

• Card : This refers to the "DAC" itself. This is the "chip" or USB / PCI etc. interface that Linux sees and shuffles audio samples to / from.
  • View these with pacmd list-cards
• Sink: This refers to the outputs (speakers) of the Card. One card can have zero to many sinks. Some sinks may not be available for some reason (e.g. headphones not plugged in, screen not active). Some cards may have one sink and switch it based on a hardware switch rather than providing the sinks separately to the OS.
  • View these with pacmd list-sinks
• Source: This is the inputs (microphones) to the Card. Like a Sink, your card can have none or many, and they are not always available.
  • View these with pacmd list-sources
• Port: Each source or sink can have multiple ports. In the situations I've seen, it's usually an alternate port connected to the same section of the DAC, and not fully independent from each other. In the USB DACs I've seen, they typically expose an "analog-output: Analog Output" and a "iec958-stereo-output: Digital Output (S/PDIF)". Both "ports" ended up to the same speakers. In another case, my GPU exposes three "outputs", one for each possible monitor.
• Sink Input: This is what application(s) are "sending" (playing) the audio to the output. This would be your music, system sounds videos etc.
  • View these with pacmd list-sink-inputs
• Source Output: This is what application(s) are "receiving" (recording) the audio from the input. This would be a recording application, and your audio to the others in a video call.
  • View these with pacmd list-source-outputs
• Monitor of ...: This is a "source" that loops back to a sink. This allows you to capture your screen and stream it. You'd see this in a audio input selection prompt.

As an example, here's how it looks for my system without any extra cards attached:

pacmd list-sinks
1 sink(s) available.
  * index: 0
        name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_07_00.6.HiFi__hw_Generic_1__sink>
        driver: <module-alsa-card.c>
        flags: HARDWARE HW_MUTE_CTRL HW_VOLUME_CTRL DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY
        state: IDLE
        suspend cause: (none)
        priority: 9032
        volume: front-left: 10690 /  16% / -47.25 dB,   front-right: 10690 /  16% / -47.25 dB
                balance 0.00
        base volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
        volume steps: 65537
        muted: no
        current latency: 80.64 ms
        max request: 30 KiB
        max rewind: 30 KiB
        monitor source: 0
        sample spec: s32le 2ch 48000Hz
        channel map: front-left,front-right
                     Stereo
        used by: 0
        linked by: 1
        fixed latency: 80.00 ms
        card: 1 <alsa_card.pci-0000_07_00.6>
        module: 8
        properties:
                alsa.resolution_bits = "32"
                device.api = "alsa"
                device.class = "sound"
                alsa.class = "generic"
                alsa.subclass = "generic-mix"
                alsa.name = "ALC257 Analog"
                alsa.id = "ALC257 Analog"
                alsa.subdevice = "0"
                alsa.subdevice_name = "subdevice #0"
                alsa.device = "0"
                alsa.card = "1"
                alsa.card_name = "HD-Audio Generic"
                alsa.long_card_name = "HD-Audio Generic at 0xfd3c0000 irq 124"
                alsa.driver_name = "snd_hda_intel"
                device.bus_path = "pci-0000:07:00.6"
                sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.1/0000:07:00.6/sound/card1"
                device.bus = "pci"
                device.vendor.id = "1022"
                device.vendor.name = "Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD]"
                device.product.id = "15e3"
                device.product.name = "Family 17h (Models 10h-1fh) HD Audio Controller"
                device.description = "Laptop"
                device.string = "hw:Generic_1"
                device.buffering.buffer_size = "30720"
                device.buffering.fragment_size = "3840"
                device.access_mode = "mmap"
                device.profile.name = "HiFi: hw:Generic_1: sink"
                device.profile.description = "Speaker + Headphones"
                alsa.mixer_device = "hw:Generic_1"
                module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
                device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"
        ports:
                [Out] Speaker: Speaker (priority 100, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
                        properties:

                [Out] Headphones: Headphones (priority 200, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
                        properties:

        active port: <[Out] Speaker>

The pacmd output above essentially shows you all you need to know about that sink.

We're able to update some of these properties above and that's how we can make this card more "presentable"

In most cases source and sink are interchangeable in command names, assuming you're also updating the device / target it's applying to.

The pacmd way

As mentioned, this method only works for devices that will always be present. Thankfully that works perfectly fine to rename the internal sound cards.

In this particular situation, I want to rename the audio card, and both of it's inputs. As it stands, I get to chose between:

• Family 17h (Models 10h-1fh) HD Audio Controller - Digital Microphone
• Family 17h (Models 10h-1fh) HD Audio Controller - Headphones Stereo Microphone
• Monitor of (Every possible output)

When you attempt to use a microphone in Firefox, it only gives you a narrow drop down menu to pick from, so it's quite difficult to get it right the first time.

I want to rename the card to Laptop, and then the inputs to "Laptop Microphone" and "Laptop Headphones".

The pacmd commands for that is:

pacmd 'update-sink-proplist   alsa_output.pci-0000_07_00.6.HiFi__hw_Generic_1__sink   device.description="Laptop"'
pacmd 'update-source-proplist alsa_input.pci-0000_07_00.6.HiFi__hw_acp__source        device.product.name="Laptop" device.description="Laptop Microphone"

These commands will only work for my machine, and systems very similar to it. You will need to grab the name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_07_00.6.HiFi__hw_Generic_1__sink> from the particular card you want and strip the angle brackets.

The single quotes are important as otherwise pacmd breaks if there is a space in the name / description.

If you run that in a terminal as your user account, it should take effect immediately, but some applications take some time or need to be restarted.

To have this apply automatically, we need to "override" the default.pa script file that is used when PulseAudio starts up. PulseAudio will use ~/.config/pulse/default.pa if it's present, otherwise it will use /etc/pulse/default.pa. You can copy the system config into the user folder, but instead we can import the system config and then add our additions afterwards:

1. mkdir -p ~/.config/pulse
2. nano ~/.config/pulse/default.pa

.include /etc/pulse/default.pa
update-source-proplist << source name>>        device.product.name="Card Name" device.description="Input Name"
update-source-proplist << source name>>  device.product.name="Card Name" device.description="Other Input Name"

Note that we're only putting the contents of the single quotes above into this file, as it is a "PulseAudio" script file, and is interpreted by pacmd itself.

To apply these changes without logging out and back in, or restarting, either run pulseaudio --kill or systemctl --user restart pulseaudio.service.

Finally, to verify that it's working correctly, you can use the pacmd list-** commands, or use pavucontrol:

The udev way

Now unfortunately PulseAudio will spit it's chips if you have a command in your default.pa script referencing a card that's not there. Instead, we can apply a limited set of properties using udev, which will apply them when the device is first seen by the system.

At this stage, it looks like it's only possible to set the name of the "card", rather than the specific sinks or sources.

Resulting config

/etc/udev/rules.d/90-pulse.rules:

ATTRS{idVendor}=="04da", ATTRS{idProduct}=="23c2", ENV{SOUND_DESCRIPTION}="SA-PMX82"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="17ef", ATTRS{idProduct}=="30d1", ENV{SOUND_DESCRIPTION}="Dock Headphones"
ATTRS{vendor}=="0x1002", ATTRS{device}=="0x1637", ATTRS{subsystem_vendor}=="0x17aa", ATTRS{subsystem_device}=="0x5082", ENV{SOUND_DESCRIPTION}="GPU Audio"
ATTRS{vendor}=="0x1022", ATTRS{device}=="0x15e3", ATTRS{subsystem_vendor}=="0x17aa", ATTRS{subsystem_device}=="0x5082", ENV{SOUND_DESCRIPTION}="Laptop Audio"

~/.config/pulse/default.pa

.include /etc/pulse/default.pa

update-sink-proplist   alsa_output.pci-0000_07_00.6.HiFi__hw_Generic_1__sink   device.description="Laptop"
update-source-proplist alsa_input.pci-0000_07_00.6.HiFi__hw_acp__source        device.product.name="Laptop" device.description="Laptop Microphone"
update-source-proplist alsa_input.pci-0000_07_00.6.HiFi__hw_Generic_1__source  device.product.name="Laptop" device.description="Laptop Headphones"