[kde-linux] KDE resetting microphone setting upon login

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net> wrote:
> Mark Knecht posted on Tue, 01 May 2012 09:03:22 -0700 as excerpted:
>
>> I misunderstood your suggestion originally. To me KDE is a big
>> monolithic thing, a behemoth the parts of which are not to be trifled
>> with by me. That said the problem (at least initially) is kmix. I did an
>> emerge -C kmix from the console and then started KDE. All microphone
>> settings appear to be OK.
>
> Good to see my suspicions were correct. =:^)  As for kde being big/
> monolithic, yeah, that's an easy enough thought pattern to get into.  But
> it doesn't tend to help troubleshooting, and it's useful to remember that
> there's a bunch of different developers each with their individual
> thoughts and ideas working on kde too, sometimes.  That's actually the
> bit I have more trouble with, as it's very easy to take one kde-dev's
> thoughts on something and pin them on kde as a whole, but it doesn't
> necessarily work that way.
>

Certainly. The important thing is to get to the right person.

>> The next tests will be to exit KDE, come back in again, make sure things
>> are ok, maybe emerge kmix again, see if it's messed up again, etc. I'll
>> do that later today after the market closes. Right now I'm in the middle
>> of a bunch of trades.
>
> AFAIK there's an option somewhere, that sets whether kmix resets the
> volume on kde startup, or not.  But as I said, it has been awhile since I
> had it installed, and of course it's possible they changed it along the
> line, too, which might explain why it started working differently for you.
>

Actually, that option - where ever it might be - is working, and for
output sound levels it's working fine and always has. The thing that's
changed with KDE-4.8 is that the mic levels are wrong, but only the
mix levels. Output levels are fine.

>> QUESTION: Might you be able to suggest any other Open Source mixer to
>> replace kmix? I find I need a desktop mixer due to my work in VMs all
>> day long where every app and every machine has different volume levels.
>
> Personally, alsamixer has worked well for me, for years.  I can run it in
> a konsole window when in kde, or from a VT when I'm not in X, which is
> nice, and I actually find it clearer to deal with than kmix in some ways,
> tho I liked kmix for its ability to have one (configurable) control set
> as master, and being able to just pop that up from the tray, when
> needed.  But whenever I want to actually see what controls are available
> and change the more complex options or adjust more than one channel, I
> tend to prefer alsamixer.
>

And that will work for me also, but it's clunky and not easy to
remember which mic levels to set. My system has multiple sound cards,
and each sound card has multiple inputs. If I find the correct inputs
in alsamixer I can set the levels, and they stick through reboots,
etc., but it's just clunky.

In the short term, since removing kmix has solved the basic mic level
problems, I can live this way for a while until I find the right
KDE-dev and get kmix fixed.

Cheers,
Mark