Gnome DE: How to disable certain sound devices (input & output)?

[natalie-perret]

Hi,

I’m using Gnome as my DE.
I’m a wee confused about the supposedly default audio service for Manjaro, pulseaudio or pipewire, I’ve been using this Gnome extension below:

• GitHub - marcinjahn/gnome-quicksettings-audio-devices-hider-extension: A Gnome Shell extension that allows you to hide selected devices from the Quick Settings audio devices panel

But based on my understanding, it doesn’t really tackle the root cause, also I installed pavucontrol and muted what I could, but there are still some devices showing up (hence why I ended up using the Gnome extension).

I would like to know a reliable and simple way to disable sound devices (both input and output).

My lspci output:

╭─natalie-perret at natalie-perret-precision5570 in ⌁
╰─λ lspci                                                                                                                                             127 (0.004s) < 07:49:48
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 12th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 02)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 12th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x16 Controller #1 (rev 02)
0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] (rev 0c)
0000:00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake Innovation Platform Framework Processor Participant (rev 02)
0000:00:06.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation RST VMD Managed Controller
0000:00:07.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Thunderbolt 4 PCI Express Root Port #0 (rev 02)
0000:00:07.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Thunderbolt 4 PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev 02)
0000:00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 12th Gen Core Processor Gaussian & Neural Accelerator (rev 02)
0000:00:0d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Thunderbolt 4 USB Controller (rev 02)
0000:00:0d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Thunderbolt 4 NHI #0 (rev 02)
0000:00:0e.0 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation Volume Management Device NVMe RAID Controller
0000:00:12.0 Serial controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Integrated Sensor Hub (rev 01)
0000:00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH USB 3.2 xHCI Host Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH Shared SRAM (rev 01)
0000:00:14.3 Network controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi (rev 01)
0000:00:15.0 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #0 (rev 01)
0000:00:15.1 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #1 (rev 01)
0000:00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH HECI Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:16.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake AMT SOL Redirection (rev 01)
0000:00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P PCH PCIe Root Port #4 (rev 01)
0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH eSPI Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH-P SMBus Host Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:1f.5 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P PCH SPI Controller (rev 01)
0000:01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GA107GLM [RTX A1000 Laptop GPU] (rev a1)
0000:a4:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5260 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)
10000:e0:06.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 12th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x4 Controller #0 (rev 02)
10000:e1:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: SK hynix Platinum P41/PC801 NVMe Solid State Drive

I’m not sure if that could be relevant, but just in case of, I’m also listing the output of a fastfetch:

╭─natalie-perret at natalie-perret-precision5570 in ⌁
╰─λ fastfetch                                                                                                                                           0 (1.204s) < 08:39:10
██████████████████  ████████    natalie-perret@natalie-perret-precision5570
██████████████████  ████████    -------------------------------------------
██████████████████  ████████    OS: Manjaro Linux x86_64
██████████████████  ████████    Host: Precision 5570
████████            ████████    Kernel: Linux 6.10.6-10-MANJARO
████████  ████████  ████████    Uptime: 1 day, 15 hours, 24 mins
████████  ████████  ████████    Packages: 1375 (pacman)[stable]
████████  ████████  ████████    Shell: fish 3.7.1
████████  ████████  ████████    Display (DELL P2419H): 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz in 24″ [External] *
████████  ████████  ████████    Display (DELL P2419H): 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz in 24″ [External]
████████  ████████  ████████    DE: GNOME 46.4
████████  ████████  ████████    WM: Mutter (X11)
████████  ████████  ████████    WM Theme: Custom-Accent-Colors
████████  ████████  ████████    Theme: KvLibadwaitaMaiaDark [Qt], adw-gtk3-dark [GTK2/3/4]
                                Icons: Papirus-Dark-Maia [Qt], Papirus-Dark-Maia [GTK2/3/4]
                                Font: qt5ct [Qt], Noto Sans (11pt) [GTK2/3/4]
                                Cursor: Bibata-Modern-Classic (24px)
                                Terminal: GNOME Terminal 3.52.2
                                Terminal Font: MesloLGS NF (11pt)
                                CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12800H (20) @ 4.80 GHz
                                GPU 1: NVIDIA RTX A1000 Laptop GPU
                                GPU 2: Intel Iris Xe Graphics @ 1.40 GHz [Integrated]
                                Memory: 11.71 GiB / 31.02 GiB (38%)
                                Swap: 0 B / 12.00 GiB (0%)
                                Disk (/): 75.37 GiB / 468.09 GiB (16%) - ext4
                                Local IP (enp0s20f0u1u2): 192.168.1.215/24
                                Battery: 100% [AC Connected]
                                Locale: en_US.UTF-8

[megavolt]

@natalie-perret

I would like to know a reliable and simple way to disable sound devices (both input and output).

pavucontrol → Configuration → Profile: Off

or

# get the card name
pactl list cards short | cut -f2
# switch it off
pactl set-card-profile <cardprofile> off

@natalie-perret

But based on my understanding, it doesn’t really tackle the root cause, also I installed pavucontrol and muted what I could, but there are still some devices showing up (hence why I ended up using the Gnome extension).

So you mute them? Why? Do you use only one audio device? So that one:

@natalie-perret

0000:00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)

[soundofthunder]

@natalie-perret

I would like to know a reliable and simple way to disable sound devices (both input and output).

Reliable, but in no way convenient, is to simply disable an audio device in BIOS. This is certainly effective for all built-in audio systems, though if you have a discrete audio card, this won’t necessarily be useful.

Cheers.

[nikgnomic]

For onboard audio device

0000:00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)

To disable all inputs and outputs

pactl set-card-profile alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1f.3 off

To disable inputs and retain outputs for speaker and headphone

pactl set-card-profile alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1f.3 output:analog-stereo

pipewire-pulse can also use pw-cli to change card profile
Migrate PulseAudio - set-card-profile · Wiki · PipeWire

[natalie-perret]

Thanks!
I will look into it