[pulseaudio-discuss] How to save mixer settings?

[Colin Guthrie]

'Twas brillig, and Frode Severin Hatlevik at 18/09/10 22:14 did gyre and
gimble:
> What happens is this:
> After KDE loads the desktop, all the mixer levels seem to be reset to
> factory default levels, which are not appropriate. The worst part is
> that the mic in the 'Playback' category is unmuted and at a high
> level, and hence constantly feeds all the nearby sound to the
> speakers. If I turn the master volume up I easily get a feedback.

In older version of kmix, it had the option to "restore mixer settings".
I suggest you turn this option off.

Also when you mute your mic and get things setup  the way you want, you
could try (as root) "alsactl store 0" to save the mixer settings. These
should then be restored at next boot. This is a system wide preference
however, so if multiple users are on the system be sure to make sure all
their kmix settings are right.


> I tried tapping the mic to see when in the KDE loading sequence the
> messup occurs, and it seems to be rather late, at least after the
> desktop appears, but before KDE has finished loading all the tidbits.

Probably when kmix starts.

> I also tried with different backends for phonon; Xine and GStreamer
> both produce the same results. I even tried to replace
> start-pusleaudio-kde with start-pulseaudio-x11. Nothing changed.

That would tie in with the kmix theory.

> Disabling the '-restore' modules in default.pa did not help either.

Ditto.

> Please find attached the output from 'amixer -c0' before and after KDE loads.
> 
> What is going on here? The only way I managed to get mixer levels
> properly set is by using 'alsamixer -c0' in an xterm, or running
> '/usr/sbin/alsactl restore 0'. I have previously stored the wanted
> settings by issuing '/usr/sbin/alsactl store 0'. Note that /usr/sbin
> is not in my path, and that alsactl is world executable.

All fingers point to kmix. In more recent versions I disable the
functionality (the option may still be present in the GUI tho) for
restoring mixer settings when PA is in use. With PA, kmix delegates the
mixer setup to PA.

Try that to see if your older version of kmix will then limp on until
you get the fully integrated version.

Col


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Colin Guthrie
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http://colin.guthr.ie/

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