Phonon does not provide enough info to identify devices

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Binary package hint: phonon

I'm running Maverick 10.10, Phonon Configuration Module version 4.5.1, default Phonon Xine backend 0.2.60, and default PulseAudio. I have a Creative SB Audigy ZS card and built-in motherboard VIA 8237 audio.

When I bring up System Settings > Multimedia > Phonon > Device Preference, it lists "Internal Audio Analog Stereo" twice, as does panel > KMix > Select Master Channel. This is insufficient info to distinguish my audio devices.

KDE has to provide more information so I can tell the two devices apart. There's plenty of additional detail available to disintinguish these at every layer of the audio stack, PulseAudio, Alsa, and PCI. For example, `pacmd list-sinks` presents in part:
 * index: 0
  name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_0d.0.analog-stereo>
  properties:
    alsa.card_name = "SB Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350]"
    alsa.long_card_name = "SB Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350] (rev.4, serial:0x20021102) at 0xb400, irq 18"
    device.description = "Internal Audio Analog Stereo"

 * index: 1
  name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_11.5.analog-stereo>
  properties
    alsa.card_name = "VIA 8237"
    alsa.long_card_name = "VIA 8237 with AD1980 at 0x1000, irq 22"
    device.description = "Internal Audio Analog Stereo"

Any of this stuff in addition to device.description would distinguish the two audio devices.

Either KDE could notice it's presenting two identical device names and append additional info, thus
  Internal Audio Analog Stereo (SB Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350])
  Internal Audio Analog Stereo (VIA 8237)
or it could have a tooltip or properties that provides the extra info.

I say "KDE" here, but I have assigned the bug to Phonon. I think the System Settings code is in phonon_devicepreference_update in package kdebase_runtime, I'm not sure where the KMix Select Master Channel code lives.

It may be a PulseAudio or PCI glitch that I have two sound devices with the same name, I filed bug http://www.pulseaudio.org/ticket/863

[Colin Guthrie (launchpad-colin)]

As a small work around, if you run KDE you could do:
  pacmd update-sink-proplist alsa_output.pci-0000_00_11.5.analog-stereo device.description="My Nice Name"

This will be reflected in Phonon UI and should be restored after reboot too.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 10.10 (maverick) reached end-of-life on April 10, 2012.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

Please upgrade to the latest version and re-test.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for pulseaudio (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]