Switch audio output device in Debian Squeeze

Question

If there are multiple audio card in the system (i.e. internal audio and USB), how to switch the output device easily?

The volume applet in Ubuntu (10.04 or 10.10) provide this feature directly, while Debian doesn't have. I think it is because of the version of gnome-volume-control are different.

I checked the version of gnome-volume-control by

$ gnome-volume-control --version

then got:

Ubuntu 10.10: 2.31.6
Ubuntu 10.04: 2.30.0
Debian Squeeze: ** (gnome-volume-control.gstreamer:30422): DEBUG: deleted the custom theme dir

How can I update gnome-volume-control in Debian squeeze?

Answer 1

You can install pavucontrol and/or padevchooser. The former allows to choose the output device. The second one allows you have it in the tray area.