I’ve found that using the ALSA sound system in Ubuntu is pretty slick, but becomes a pain when the sound tool in Ubuntu doesn’t correctly switch devices using the graphical user interface.
In a nutshell, here are a few useful commands to list and select the sound devices that are on your computer:
<code>asoundconf list</code>
list available sound cards
<code>asoundconf set-default-card !!#</code>
Set the default sound card. Replace !! with the device name from the previous command
<code>alsamixer !!</code>
Adjust volume settings for your specific sound card. Once again, replace !! with the device.
Running through these 3 commands will probably save any user a great deal of grief in the long run.