Comment 13 for bug 46996

Daniel, I have just finished fighting with this "default ALSA card not found" issue for several days, and I came to Launchpad to file a bug report, when I saw this one referenced.

I disagree with the approach of using asoundconf set-default-card <string> because (a) the user is not given information what the string should be, (b) the command does not error when the user has chosen the wrong string, and (c) that asoundconf command is not universal - there are still SDL applications that are unable to find a default card.

My work around that I wanted to share was:
(1) Get the card's module name with the command: cat /proc/asound/modules
(2) With sudo, edit the file: /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
(3) Insert into the last line: options <module name> index=0
(4) Restart ALSA with: sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart

I believe Ubuntu should handle these steps during installation, as this is a painful process for new users to get basic sound functionality.