My Xubuntu system recognizes my speakers, and I can change the mixer settings to make them the active sound device, but no matter what I do, the hardware dial will only affect the onboard sound device. generic-usb 0003:046D:0A19.0003: input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.00 Device [ Logitech Logitech Z205 ] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-1/input2 updated to reflect the fact that this was Xubuntu desktop (from Kubuntu install originally) where I had this problem. I was able to easily do this from Ubuntu Natty installation.