[pulseaudio-discuss] Volume problems in Pulse and alsamixer.

[Jud Craft]

Hello.  Just installed F11 and made a note about the sound.  I hate to
waste anybody's time with something obvious, but...

Why does Pulseaudio (both in pavucontrol and in the new Sound
Properties panel) not scale exactly with Alsamixer?

For example, in PulseAudio's volume properties, levels 0-30% on my
master channel (one of those Intel cards) all read 0% in alsamixer.
It doesn't even notice them.  For my front mic, levels 0-40% read as
0% on alsamixer.

So Pulseaudio's volume dials don't correspond with alsa's, and it
means that it's cumbersome to adjust my volume (100% is too loud, but
75% is too quiet).


Also, I hate to bring up a Skype problem:  for some reason, when using
Skype (that same version 2.00 they've had forever), my main output
volume in Pulse will randomly jump to 110% (?!?!).  I have the "adjust
my volume" feature in Skype disabled, so I have no idea why that's
happening -- it wouldn't even make any sense if it _was_ enabled.  The
sound gets garbly and eventually Skype freezes.

The linux Skype hasn't changed in at least two years, and nothing like
that ever happened to me on F10, where Skype worked fine with Pulse
once I set up the microphone right.  Should I file a bug?