alsactl

Save and restore ALSA sound card settings.

TLDR

Store current sound card settings

$ sudo alsactl store

Restore saved settings

$ sudo alsactl restore

Store settings for specific card

$ sudo alsactl store [0]

Initialize sound cards to default

$ sudo alsactl init

Restore using a specific state file

$ sudo alsactl -f [/path/to/asound.state] restore

Monitor driver events

$ sudo alsactl monitor

Restore with debug output

$ sudo alsactl -d restore

SYNOPSIS

alsactl [options] command [card]

alsactl is an ALSA soundcard control utility that manages sound card configuration state. It can save and restore mixer settings, volume levels, and other audio parameters.The tool is typically called automatically during system startup and shutdown to preserve audio settings across reboots.

PARAMETERS

store [card]

Save current state to file

restore [card]

Restore state from file

init [card]

Initialize card to default state

nrestore [card]

Restore but don't fail on missing state file

monitor

Monitor driver events

-f file

State file (default: /var/lib/alsa/asound.state)

-d

Debug mode

-F

Force restore, try to restore as many controls as possible

-g, --ignore

Ignore missing soundcards (no error message or exit code)

-P, --pedantic

Don't restore mismatching control elements

-I, --no-init-fallback

Don't initialize cards if restore fails

-r, --runstate file

Save restore/init state to file for error reporting

CONFIGURATION

/var/lib/alsa/asound.state

Default state file where mixer settings and volume levels are saved and restored from. Can also be located at /etc/asound.state on some distributions.

CAVEATS

Requires root privileges for system-wide operations. State files are card-specific; moving a card to a different slot may cause issues. Some driver updates may invalidate saved state.

HISTORY

alsactl has been part of the ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) project since ALSA replaced OSS (Open Sound System) as the standard Linux audio framework in the early 2000s.