[sf-lug] THIS SUNDAY, May 3, 11 AM, SF-LUG ZOOM vrtual meeting

[Akkana Peck]

Alex Kleider writes:
> In the spirit of staying 'lean' I used xdm rather than gdm.
> I was under the impression that it is gnome that leaves the large foot
> print.
> Am I wrong?

You're not wrong: the desktop (gnome) makes a much bigger difference
than the login manager (xdm/gdm). Though personally I don't use
either one. On the latest Ubuntu (20.04), I ran
    sudo systemctl set-default multi-user
and I also edited /etc/default/grub and set
    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text"
Now my system boots to a login prompt. Then I can run startx, with
a .xinitrc that runs the openbox window manager. Very lightweight.

For pulse, I have no advice on how to start it; Ubuntu comes with it
(whether or not you're using gnome; it's not tied to the desktop)
so for me, it starts automatically, and my issue is how to configure
it. I've spent way too much time fiddling with pavucontrol trying to
get sound going where I want it, and what I'm looking for now is a
deterministic way of routing sound to particular devices from the
command line. E.g. "turn off the internal card, use the sound card
in the USB-C hub and the external speakers plugged into that, and
use the USB mic for input." And, maybe more important, "Turn off
all the dang microphones until I explicitly ask for one."

I have the first part working, switching between the internal sound
card and the USB-C sound card ("Configuration" tab in pavucontrol):
https://github.com/akkana/scripts/blob/master/pulse
I'm still working on the Input and Output devices (making progress
on that), on figuring out fallback devices, and on understanding how
pulse remembers different settings for specific apps (pavucontrol's
"Playback" tab) and whether there's a way to view or override that list.

There doesn't seem to be much documentation for this stuff.

        ...Akkana