Title: Dummy Soundcard for Amazon linux server
Tags: linux;amazon-web-services;amazon-ec2
Question: I need to use an application which needs a soundcard in an amazon ec2 instance with the default ubuntu 16.04 installed on it. Problem is that there's no soundcard available. I've tried everything on google on how to create a dummy soundcard so the program runs with no problem, but nothing helped because it was outdated. This is what ```lspci```returns:
```00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440FX - 82441FX PMC [Natoma] (rev 02)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 ISA [Natoma/Triton II]
00:01.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 IDE [Natoma/Triton II]
00:01.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 01)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Cirrus Logic GD 5446
00:03.0 Unassigned class [ff80]: XenSource, Inc. Xen Platform Device (rev 01)
```
lsmod | grep snd does not return ANYTHING which makes me think that I might me missing all modules, and not just ```snd-dummy```.
I've been trying to setup a dummy by using the command ```sudo modprobe snd-dummy``` which returns the following error:
```modprobe: FATAL: Module snd-dummy not found in directory /lib/modules/4.4.0-1013-aws
```
Any clues?

Comment: have you tried this already? https://superuser.com/questions/344760/how-to-create-a-dummy-sound-card-device-in-linux-server

Comment: Hey, thanks for the response! unfortunately yes, I've tried it. The problem is that when I execute modprobe, it doesnt find the dummy module :(


Here is another answer: If anyone still has the same issue:
You are probably using an AMI that comes with a kernel compiled without the ```snd-dummy``` module. The ALSA wiki suggests building this modules from source (```alsa-driver```) but this is out of date.
I was able to run an application that needs a soundcard on EC2 by installing pulseaudio
```sudo apt install pulseaudio
pulseaudio --start
```
After which I get:
```$ aplay test.wav 
Playing WAVE 'test.wav' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 22257 Hz, Mono
```
And the soundcard-needing application runs normally. If this is not enough for you, you might need to enable the default sink:
```pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=auto_null
pactl set-default-sink auto_null
```
More details here Linux application fails with &quot;Invalid CTL&quot; and &quot;Unknown PCM&quot;


{'source': 'StackExchangeDataset', 'subset': 'stackoverflow.com', 'metadata': {'AnswerCount': 1, 'CommentCount': 2, 'ContentLicense': 'CC BY-SA 4.0', 'CreationDate': '2017:00:05/17/17', 'FavoriteCount': 1.0, 'PostTypeId': 1, 'Tags': '<linux><amazon-web-services><amazon-ec2>', 'Title': 'Dummy Soundcard for Amazon linux server', 'ViewCount': 876, 'id': 44032488, 'user_AboutMe': None, 'user_AccountId': 8145483.0, 'user_DisplayName': 'Outer2g', 'user_Reputation': 101.0, 'user_Views': 6.0, 'user_id': 6134269.0}}