USB headphones

From openSUSE

USB headsets act to the computer as a completely separate audio device from your audio card. As a result, dealing with the headphone activation and which sounds go to which devices is a bit more complex than using the audio jack on your soundcard.

Initial configuration

To get openSUSE working with USB headphones, it is quite easy.

1. Connect the USB headphones.
2. Select the SuSE menu > Applications tab > System > Administrator Settings (YaST)
3. Select Hardware > Sound

You should see a list of audio cards. Sometimes, it doesn't list the USB headphones automatically. If not, we can add it manually.

1. Click Add
2. Search for USB audio
3. Select USB Audio, Generic
4. Click Next
5. Leave Quick Automatic Setup selected and click Next

You should now see your sound cards including the USB headset. Now we need the system to prefer the USB headphones, when connected.

1. Select USB Audio
2. Select Other button > Set as the primary card
3. Click Finish

At this point, the USB headphones should be active. You will need to have them connected when the computer starts, or you will need to restart the sound services to make them active.

If the computer is started without the USB headphones, the soundcard will be the active sound device.

Volume and Master Channel

Use the volume controls (kmix or Gnome equivalent), to select the volume, you may also want to select the appropriate Master Channel so that you can adjust the volume on your headset appropriately.

In KDE, you can do this by right-clicking on the volume (kmix) icon in the system tray, and selecting Select Master Channel. Be sure to select the proper audio device in the Current Mixer menu, then select the appropriate channel. This may be PCM, Master, or Main.

Restarting the Sound System

If the computer is already running, ALSA will automatically update the audio devices when the USB headphones are connected. Unfortunately, the active sound system may not recognize that the sound devices have been changed.

Restarting the sound system

In KDE, the sound system is typically aRts. Restarting it is relatively easy.

1. Select the SuSE menu > Configure Desktop
2. Select Sound & Multimedia > Sound System
3. In the General tab, uncheck and re-check the Enable the sound system checkbox.
4. Click Apply

Restarting volume mixer

In KDE, kmix is the volume mixer. It needs to be closed and restarted to recognize that the audio devices have changed.

1. Right-click on the volume icon in the system tray, it looks like a speaker.
2. Select Quit and press Quit again, if it asks if we're really sure.
3. Select the SuSE menu > Applications tab > Multimedia > Sound Mixer (kmix)