I have a multimedia keyboard of which I have mapped XF86AudioRaiseVolume and XF86AudioLowerVolume to certain buttons. I have the dreaded hda-intel based sound card. Using the patch provided here I was able to get a working headphones setup. The problem is that now the <headphones> mixer in alsamixer is the default so when I use my multimedia keys to raise and lower the volumes, it only adjusts the headphones volumes, not the internal speakers of the laptop.
How can I remap the <speaker> mixer to be the default instead of the <headphones> mixer so that when I press the Volume Up multimedia key on my keyboard it raises the <speaker> volume and not the <headphones> volume?

EDIT: Fixed with alsa 1.0.14rc1

granted I haven't had the opportunity to try much, but I haven't gotten anything close to such detailed functionality out of linux periferals.

how hard was it to set up the multimedia keyboard? How much do you know driver hacking? Wanna job?

As to the driver, I have been working on full support for this (I'm the author of the current conexant patch in alsa 1.0.14rc1). I just received documentation on this chip from Conexant a couple of days before Christmas, and will be working on a major revision of the code (I made some wrong assumptions based on incomplete data).

If you'd like to help test my next patch directly, send me an email and I'll add you to the list (if you're not on it already).

Tobin