I've got JACK/pipewire installed, thought I could do what I want through qpwgraph, but I can't see a 'System sounds' source on there. Also I've found that changes in qpwgraph don't seem to persist and anyway I can't be doing with re-connecting everything all the time - it's quite laborious manually dragging the connections around.
I think part of my problem is that in my office audio goes through plugable usb/displaylink hub, but at home it's through the laptop speakers/headphone out.
What I'd like is that system sounds/notifications always come through the laptop speakers/headphone out, when the displaylink hub is plugged in media (spotify/web browser) will be sent through that, if not plugged in then through laptop speakers/headphone out.
Is there a way this can be managed and for it to persist between sessions?
I still find linux sound quite confusing to deal with despite having spent quite a bit of time looking into it all.
TIA for any advice!
Brave A.I. search engine via mojeek suggests:
"#
System Sounds and Streaming Audio Setup
To achieve separate audio outputs for system sounds and streaming audio on Ubuntu 22.04 with JACK and PipeWire installed, you can configure PipeWire and JACK to route different types of audio to different outputs. Here are steps you can follow:
- Configure PipeWire : Ensure that PipeWire is properly configured to handle audio routing. You can use
pavucontrol to manage audio outputs and inputs. Install pavucontrol if it's not already installed:
sudo apt install pavucontrol
Open pavucontrol and set the default output device for system sounds to your laptop speakers.
2. Configure JACK : JACK can be used for low-latency audio streaming. You can configure JACK to use a different output device for streaming audio. Start JACK with the desired output device:
jackd -d alsa -d hw:0 -p 128 -n 2 -r 48000
Replace hw:0 with the appropriate device identifier for your streaming hub.
3. Routing with PipeWire : Use PipeWire to route system sounds to the laptop speakers and streaming audio to the hub. You can use the pipewire-cli tool to set the default sink for different applications. For example, you can set the default sink for system sounds to the laptop speakers:
pactl set-default-sink
Replace <laptop_speaker_device> with the actual device identifier for your laptop speakers.
4. Routing with JACK : Use JACK to route streaming audio to the hub. Ensure that your streaming application is configured to use JACK as its audio backend.
5. Verify Configuration : Check the configuration in pavucontrol to ensure that system sounds are routed to the laptop speakers and streaming audio is routed to the hub.
By following these steps, you can configure your system to play system sounds through the laptop speakers and streaming audio through the hub on Ubuntu 22.04 with JACK and PipeWire installed."
Note that I used Ubuntu 22.04 in searching for a solution as Zorin 17 is a fork of Ubuntu 22.04.
Thanks, that got me a little further along the line.
I'm using Easy Effects too, which I want the music to go through, which seems to complicate matters.
More fiddling required...