If you have a Mac or Windows computer, and for one reason or another want to set your audio for mono playback, it couldn’t be simpler. Both of those operating systems have simple toggles, as shown below:

For people like me, who have terrible (or no) hearing in one ear, this is a huge help. And, let me tell you, there are a lot of people with hearing problems.

No such luck on Linux, at least Ubuntu, which is the most widely used version. I’ve been using it as my primary operating system for well over a decade, but this feature is still missing.

There are ways to set up mono audio, but they involve command-line stuff that is totally outside the expertise of normal users. And while the fixes do work in most cases, they are problematic if you use more than one kind of speaker system, e.g. a headset and regular speakers, which I do.

It surprises me that this obvious feature wasn’t added long ago. I hope it will be, soon.