alsamixer remember volume

aardwolf · 2012-06-04 18:35:07

Hello,

I did everything from here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ad … at_startup

I put "alsactl -f /var/lib/alsa/asound.state restore" in rc.local
I put "alsactl -f /var/lib/alsa/asound.state restore" in ~/.bash_login

And nothing helps!

If after bootup and being in KDE, I manually type "alsactl -f /var/lib/alsa/asound.state restore" in a terminal, THEN it works. But I'm sick of typing that manually every time.

How can I get Arch to restore alsa settings?

Also, at every bootup, alsamixer is in "some" state, one where microphone volume is at 0. Where does it get that state from? Is that also a saved state somewhere? If it always wants to go to that one, is there a way to edit THAT one?

I really really want to have Arch just remember my volume settings I've already tried everything on the wiki, I've asked here long before, I've asked on IRC, nothing helps

Please help?

Thanks!

Last edited by aardwolf (2012-06-04 18:35:17)

ewaller · 2012-06-04 18:38:40

Can you verify you put 'alsa' in your DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf?

brebs · 2012-06-04 19:21:31

Is KDE doing its own volume reset?

In XFCE, I just run a script automatically at XFCE's startup.

aardwolf · 2012-06-06 17:43:46

I've got this for DAEMONS:

DAEMONS=(hwclock syslog-ng network netfs crond alsa)

About KDE, I'm not sure. On the previous computer I used KDE 3.5 till the bitter end (= beginning this year), and there was a setting "Enable KDE multimedia system" or similar, that I set to disabled (and yet audio worked, thanks to alsa I guess). But in KDE 4 this setting isn't there anymore... There is Phonon but I don't see something to disable it.

Why does Linux have so many different things that do audio? alsa, phonon, pulseaudio, ...

I also remember that Archlinux on previous computers I had did a step "Restoring alsa volume" at bootup every time, and now this step isn't there anymore. Since I never configured that myself I guess Archlinux and its packages did that as default somehow back then, and now not anymore? How did that work?

Last edited by aardwolf (2012-06-06 17:45:18)

Inxsible · 2012-06-06 18:28:23

aardwolf wrote:

Why does Linux have so many different things that do audio? alsa, phonon, pulseaudio, ...

The same reason there exists Gnome, KDE, Xfce and a shitload of WMs. It's called choice.

Pick one and use it.

Trilby · 2012-06-06 18:35:28

RE: pick one and use it. Completely agree on the reason and the conclusion, but be aware that some DE's limit your choice.

The closest I've come to KDE is seeing a few screenshots, so take this with a very large grain of salt, but I believe KDE relies on phonon at some level, so getting alsa to "take the lead" in KDE may take further configuration. Or you could just focus your energy on getting phonon to work for you - though I'm as ignorant of phonon as I am KDE.

aardwolf · 2012-06-07 14:49:23

The difference between a desktop environment and an audio module is that for a desktop environment there HAS to be choice, everyone has their own style!

However, for playing audio, there's really one thing it should do, and that is play audio, from every application, to every sound card.

Alsa is my favorite one, and the only one I've ever got to work, so I'll try to look up more about the combination of KDE and alsa.

aardwolf · 2012-06-11 18:41:12

I found something that said you should do this:

kmixctrl -s

to make KDE store it.

So I did it, while the microphone volume was correctly set in alsamixer.

Guess what I discover after next reboot: microphone volume at zero again!

I really don't understand! My previous archlinux remembered volume settings, and on the current one I tried *Everything* I could find on the internet, and still no go!!!

Anyone know? Thanks!!!

Zancarius · 2012-06-11 21:37:58

aardwolf wrote:

Guess what I discover after next reboot: microphone volume at zero again!
I really don't understand! My previous archlinux remembered volume settings, and on the current one I tried *Everything* I could find on the internet, and still no go!!!
Anyone know? Thanks!!!

Does your ALSA setup recognize multiple cards or do you just have one?

I doubt this will be of some help, but I had a very similar issue to you that mysteriously resolved itself (admittedly after some tinkering), so I must've "broken" something that fixed it. In my case, all of my output devices on card #1 (0 => onboard, 1 => PCI, 2 => USB) were muted after each boot regardless of how I tried to save their settings. The difference (maybe?) is that my system has more than one audio device, and that might have contributed to my issue.

Essentially, what I did was copy a known working /var/lib/alsa/asound.state, rebooted, and diff'd it with the broken version to see what wasn't working. Then I copied the working version back into /var/lib/alsa, and commented out any references to "alsactl store" in /etc/rc.d/alsa, and promptly forgot about it until the following day when I rebooted--and to my surprise, I didn't have to unmute anything! However, I'm not sure if it's some permutation of what I did versus an update, but since you're experiencing a similar issue and are presumably running the latest version of ALSA, it may not be an update-related problem. I'll reboot later with my changes backed out to see what happens, because I know that setting my known good /var/lib/alsa/asound.state to read only (chmod a-w) didn't help since the rc.d script runs as root.

What I do know is that neither adding startup scripts to KDE (as I found via a Google search) nor mucking about with other mixer settings worked, and booting straight to the terminal (no kdm or similar) yielded identical settings to those I'd encounter if I had the system configured to load kdm on start.

My theory is twofold: 1) because I have 3 sound cards in this box (onboard, an HT Omega Striker PCI card, and USB headsets), "alsactl store" doesn't adequately store the settings for all cards for some reason unknown to me (and passing -c for every card seems like overkill, though that might work), and 2) I don't have sufficient knowledge about ALSA's inner workings to understand why the correct settings weren't being saved (maybe card ordering got changed and it was saving invalid values). That said, the sledgehammer fix seemed to work--but I've not since been interested in examining why, mostly because I tend to forget about my troubles once they're solved...

Again, I'll see about checking later as I suspect my fix might've been from an update to ALSA rather than from experimentation, but it's worth at least trying to comment out these lines:

/usr/sbin/alsactl $ALSA_ARGS store || { stat_fail; exit 1; }

In /etc/rc.d/alsa under the start and stop functions after you've called "alsactl store" and have a known-good configuration. Then reboot and see what happens.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-06-04 18:35:07

alsamixer remember volume

#2 2012-06-04 18:38:40

Re: alsamixer remember volume

#3 2012-06-04 19:21:31

Re: alsamixer remember volume

#4 2012-06-06 17:43:46

Re: alsamixer remember volume

#5 2012-06-06 18:28:23

Re: alsamixer remember volume

#6 2012-06-06 18:35:28

Re: alsamixer remember volume

#7 2012-06-07 14:49:23

Re: alsamixer remember volume

#8 2012-06-11 18:41:12

Re: alsamixer remember volume

#9 2012-06-11 21:37:58

Re: alsamixer remember volume

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