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cmcginty
Asked: 2010-12-18 00:36:18 +0800 CST

How do I enable sound access for desktop users?

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I created a secondary user login for my system, but sound playback does not work? What do you have to change to give user access to sound?

sound

2 Answers

  1. Add the user to the audio group:

    sudo usermod -aG audio <username>
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  2. This is considered frowned upon in modern Ubuntu and has implications on user switching. The correct way this should be handled is by the seat manager service setting the correct ACLs on the audio devices for your logged in user.

    The issue is detailed in this (outdated) article on Ubuntu's website: The Audio Group.

    This article is outdated in the sense that it talks about ConsoleKit while in modern Ubuntu (bionic and later) managing access to seat devices is controlled by systemd-logind.

    Here is a good article that summarizes how Linux has historically and currently manages device access by users and the reasons for things being as they are.

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