In a terminal, run cat /proc/asound/modules to find out which sound modules are loaded. Say we get: 0 snd_emu10k1 1 snd_hda_intel 2 snd_usb_audio 3 snd_virmidi and say we want to rearrange them, so that: 0 will be the hda_intel, 1 will be the usb_audio, 2 will be the emu10k1 and 3 will be the virmidi Edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf and add to the end of the file the following line: options snd slots=snd_hda_intel,snd-emu10k1,snd-virmidi, Reboot the machine and the above order will be enforced In a terminal, if we now run cat /proc/asound/modules we get: 0 snd_hda_intel 1 snd_usb_audio 2 snd_emu10k1 3 snd_virmidi