Changing default audio device
 

I bought a new laptop and installed Slackware. The stock kernel doesn't support all the hardware so I upgraded to 3.7.6. My problem occurred on both kernels, just mentioning the upgrade so you know what version I'm running.

I'm having trouble making the system use the speakers. They apparently work and are recognized because I can test them in phonon under KDE's settings and I get the startup sound when booting into KDE (I use XFCE normally, just tested with KDE to make sure it wasn't just an XFCE problem). But aside from that, nothing has sound. I can't hear sound/video files by default, and I can't hear sound on youtube. I am able to manually set VLC to use the correct output, but nothing seems to want to do it automatically (specifically concerned about Firefox).

Under XFCE, I've added the mixer plugin to the panel and have told it to use the correct sound card, and I even set it in KDE's Phonon to use the right one as well, to no effect.

So I suppose there must be some config file I need to edit to make this work, but I can't figure it out. Any help would be appreciated.

So you tell us you have an HP Envy, but do not tell us the model number. You say you see multiple sound outputs, but provide no details. A quick googling suggests that you have some sort of Intel HD-audio hardware.
Posting the output of 'lspci' and 'aplay -l' and 'cat /proc/asound/card*/codec* | grep Codec' would be a good start.
You could also look here
http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:har..._snd-hda-intel
http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:har...s_on_slackware

sorry, those details didn't seem relevant since the card functions, it just doesn't want to be used as default. But it's an HP Envy 6-1111nr whose audio device shows as an 'AMD Hudson Azalia Controller' (using snd_hda_intel driver). HDMI audio is what it appears to be defaulting to.

In that case the second link in post#2 is relevant. Also look at the 'discussion' tab.

That was exactly what I needed. Thanks!