grepping https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_troubleshoot_sound_problems: You can play sound with aplay -D hw:0 /usr/share/sounds/startup3.wav When pulseaudio is running, use pasuspender /usr/bin/aplay — -D hw:0 /usr/share/sounds/startup3.wav You can play sound with paplay /usr/share/sounds/startup3.wav You can play sound with gst-launch audiotestsrc ! autoaudiosink Can we please start providing better documentation on how building blocks interact?