This article simply explains how to control your speaker and mic volume using command in linux. The commands will vary based on your soundcard driver. Some of the famous sound architectures are ALSA , OSS etc., . My machine is configured with ALSA (Advance Linux Sound Architecture).

alsamixer is a ncurses mixer program for use with the ALSA soundcard drivers. It supports multiple soundcards with multiple devices.

Here is the command to control volume via terminal

Syntax : alsamixer [ options ]

Options :
-h, –help
Help: show available flags.

-c, –card <card number or identification>
Select the soundcard to use, if you have more than one. Cards
are numbered from 0 (the default).

-D, –device <device identification>
Select the mixer device to control.

-V, –view <mode>
Select the starting view mode, either playback, capture or all.

-g, –no-color
Toggle the using of colors.

This is the screen shot of alsamixer with some basic options. In the top left most corner card name, mixer chip name, current view mode and the currently selected mixer item. Some other keyboard shortcuts are

F1 : Help ; F2 : System Information ; F6 : Select Sound Card ; Esc : Exit. 

You can navigate and increase/decrease volume using arrow keys across the bars.

alsamixer – Playback mode

When  a  mixer control is turned off, M (mute) appears below the volume bar.  When it’s turned on, O in green appears instead.  You can  toggle the switch via m key. When  a  mixer control has capture capability, the capture flag appears below the volume bar, too.  When the capture is turned off, —- is shown. CAPTURE  in  red appears when the capture switch is turned on. In addition, L and R letters appear in left and right side to  indicate that left and the right channels are turned on. Some  controls have the enumeration list, and don’t show boxes but only texts which indicate the currently active item.   You  can  change  the item via up/down keys.

Related articles:

• How to play songs using commands in linux
• How to convert songs into different formats in linux

If you like this article please share it in Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin.

Related articles

• No Related Posts