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My front panel is controlled using "Speaker" and my the back plugs are "PCM". Since this isn't very descriptive I would like to rename them to something more sane (like "front" and "back").
You can create your own alsa config file ~/.asoundrc which overrides /etc/alsa.conf. It is possible then to create your own aliases for PCM devices. For example, 'PCM' in mixer is just an alias for the device ie. hw:0,1