Enable Sound Service for root user in Ubuntu Linux

This tutorial explains how to enable the sound service for the root user account in Ubuntu Linux. Learn how to start audio service under the root user account.

To enhance the system security, by default, the root user account is disabled in Ubuntu Linux. Due to any reason if you have enabled this account and want to use it in audio related task such as; watching video and listening music, then you have to enable the audio service too.

By default, the audio service is disabled for the root user account. It means if we use the root user account for login, we will get no sound when playing audio files. To fix this issue, we have to start audio service manually.

To learn how to enable the root account in Ubuntu Linux, you can check this tutorial.

How to enable root account in Ubuntu

Enabling sound for the root user account

To enable audio service for the root user account, click the Dash (Application launcher) button. In the search box of the opened window, search the keyword "startup". From the result, click the "Startup Application".

starting startup application

This launches the startup application. This application allows us to start custom applications at startup. Through this application, we can instruct Ubuntu to start the audio service at startup.

On the main screen of application, click the Add button.

main screen of startup application

Clicking Add button opens a new pop-up window. This window allows us to add new service or command which we want to execute at the startup.

This window has three fields; Name, Command and Comment.

Name and comments fields are used to identify the service and purpose of service respectively. Command field is used to set the command which we want to execute at the startup.

option to add command

Fill these fields as explained below and click the Add button.

Name: Audio
Command: pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog
Comment: start audio service

command to start sound service

Once the audio service is added, close the start-up application.

sound service enabled

Since we have added the command which starts audio service in the startup application, the audio service will be started automatically at the startup.

To confirm it, restart the system.

restart the system

After restart, login from the root account again and check the notification area. If you see a speaker symbol in the notification area, then it indicates that the audio service has been enabled.

sound service enabled under root account

Although isn’t required, yet due to any reason if you want to disable the audio service again, open the startup application and remove the entry which enables the audio service at startup.

That’s all for this tutorial. If you like this tutorial, please don’t forget to share it with friends through your favorite social site.

ComputerNetworkingNotes Linux Tutorials Enable Sound Service for root user in Ubuntu Linux