I have cameras and microphones physically removed on all my machines, and speakers removed on the ones that handle more sensitive things. On all, the microphone shows up in the devices widget, despite having been removed. I have physically removed them myself, and I can confirm that it was done correctly, with the only caveat being that the connector is left in.
This problem persists on clients that had it removed after installing and configuring Qubes, on those where Qubes was then reinstalled fresh, and on those that had the hardware removed before Qubes touched the hard drive. All clients run Heads firmware.
Does anyone know why this is still there, or how to remove it?
I’m not sure. I see “Microphone dom0:mic” in the devices widget. I don’t really know what I’m doing with it. Is there a command I could use? I tried lspci and lsusb, but I didn’t see it.
The dom0:mic device is virtual and it’s used to connect to the physical input device that you select in dom0 PulseAudio. Click on the PulseAudio widget in tray (sound icon) → Audio mixer → Input Devices tab and check if you have your physical internal microphone present there.
It’s present there, but obviously with no audio. Do you know why? I would’ve assumed that if Qubes was installed fresh, there would be no microphone to detect, and therefore no virtual devices. Is this something created by default, just with the assumption that the mic exists? If so, how can I remove it?
I don’t know the logic behind this, but even if you remove the internal microphone there still could be HDMI audio input, headset microphone input etc.
I have removed pavucontrol after moving to sys-audio. I remember that the mic was there, but I don’t remember the name. What you mentioned about HDMI is valid though, so I’ll leave this here. I’m also leaving it unsolved in case anyone comes across it and knows what’s happening.
Thanks, @apparatus. I appreciate all the help you give here.