Newly installed ALSA on Debian Jessie. Installed alsa-base, alsa-utils, alsamixergui.

$ alsamixergui
alsamixer: Function snd-ctl-open failed for default: No such file or directory

$ ls -la /usr/bin | grep alsamixergui
alsamixergui

$ cd /usr/bin
./alsamixergui
alsamixer: Function snd-ctl-open failed for default: No such file or directory

$ echo $PATH
/home/haines/scripts:/usr/local/texlive/2014/bin/i386-linux:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

$ lsmod | grep snd
snd_ctxfi 62598 0
snd_hda_codec_hdmi 26352 1
snd_virtuoso 33765 1
snd_oxygen_lib 27905 1 snd_virtuoso
snd_mpu401_uart 13299 1 snd_oxygen_lib
snd_usb_audio 71481 2
snd_usbmidi_lib 18809 1 snd_usb_audio
snd_seq_midi 12744 0
snd_seq_midi_event 13124 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_rawmidi 22559 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_usbmidi_lib,snd_mpu401_uart
snd_hda_intel 21786 1
snd_hda_codec 63477 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_hdmi
snd_hwdep 12943 2 snd_hda_codec,snd_usb_audio
snd_pcm 53461 6 snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_usb_audio,snd_oxygen_lib,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_ctxfi
snd_seq 39592 2 snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_device 13016 3 snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_page_alloc 12867 3 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel,snd_ctxfi
snd_timer 22369 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 42761 23 snd_timer,snd_seq_device,snd_seq,snd_pcm,snd_hwdep,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_rawmidi,snd_usbmi di_lib,snd_usb_audio,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_oxygen_lib,snd_virtuoso,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_ctxfi
soundcore 12921 1 snd
usbcore 104555 8 xhci_hcd,ehci_hcd,usbhid,usb_storage,usblp,snd_usbmidi_lib,snd_usb_audio

Haines Brown

I think its looking for snd-ctl-open.

The command "alsamixer" opens a very nice NCurses interface for ALSA. That's what I've always used.

If you want to make settings persistent, as root, run the command

$ alsamixergui
alsamixer: Function snd-ctl-open failed for default: No such file or directory

Common when something isn't installed, or the soundcard is in use and locked, or it's trying to open the wrong device.

$ alsamixergui -D hw:0
$ alsamixergui -D hw:1
$ alsamixergui -D hw:2

depending on which device as indexed in /proc/asound/cards

$ cat /proc/asound/cards

By default hw:0 is assumed. Which might be a non-standard device like a webcam, or modem.

The problem disappeared when I purged alsa and audacious, rebooted them and reinstalled
audacious. This time alsamixer saw my audio card as default, which it didn't before.

Hi...

Awesome, glad it's working now. If you would, please mark this thread as "SOLVED" by clicking on "Thread Tools" directly above your initial post. Thanks!

Regards...

Card indexing can change between boots if you have multiple cards. And you likely do these days. GPU on the motherboard, soundcard on the motherboard, add in graphics card, webcam, modem, ... ... ... They're all soundcards or bound to one in some form or another. You likely changed something in /etc/modprobe.d/ when you purged alsa. One trick to choose the non-index 0 card is as follows:

FILE: $HOME/.asoundrc
Technically you only need the defaults.pcm.card 1 to output to the non-default card. The ctl one tells mixers and things what to use. Where the device one can be changed to say 3 for HDMI audio, but 0 is default.

2 members found this post helpful.

Thanks, shadow. I'll see if this works next time I boot the system.