Thank you to all who have put their 2 cents into helping me solve this problem. All that change added up to a solution. This particular article was the most helpful: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=161279 I chose the solution of altering the asound.conf file. /etc/asound.conf pcm.!default { type hw card 0 } ctl.!default { type hw card 0 } I share the complaint expressed in the article that this is a downgrade of the sound system and there really should be a better way but I am usually under headphones here at work so the complete support for my sound card is really superfluous anyway. Again, Thank you!