Bug 90208 - When kdemultimedia is installed, sound is muted at startup
Summary: When kdemultimedia is installed, sound is muted at startup
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE of bug 69320
Alias: None
Product: kmix
Classification: Applications
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Gentoo Packages Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Christian Esken
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2004-09-25 03:37 UTC by Adam
Modified: 2004-12-31 19:07 UTC (History)
0 users

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Description Adam 2004-09-25 03:37:50 UTC
Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.3.0)
Installed from:    Gentoo Packages
Compiler:          gcc (GCC) 3.3.4 20040623 (Gentoo Linux 3.3.4-r1, ssp-3.3.2-2, pie-8.7.6) 
OS:                Linux

After a while of trying to find out why my sound was suddenly becoming muted at my computer's startup, I discovered that the volume was getting set but then another program was muting it afterwards.  Since it started happening just after installing kdemultimedia, I tried uninstalling it.  Sure enough, my sound was at the correct volume at startup after that.

So something about having kdemultimedia installed is causing, at KDE startup, the ALSA volume levels of all sound channels to be set to 0.

I am further sure of this because when kdemultimedia was installed, I started my computer without starting X Windows and the volume levels were correct.
Comment 1 Adam 2004-09-27 14:12:48 UTC
This bug may be a duplicate of:

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69320

I'm not sure though.
Comment 2 Wilco Greven 2004-10-14 19:12:19 UTC
It must be kmixctrl which sets the volume at startup. Also see the Mixer module in kcontrol.
Comment 3 Adam 2004-10-14 20:45:58 UTC
That may well be true, but sorry I can't confirm it because I don't have kdemultimedia installed anymore.

As for kmixctrl setting the volume at startup, I believe it should not even have the capability to do so.  Preserving the volume across reboots is a job for the lower level sound system, not a graphical desktop.  If it wants to put a slider which sends a message to the lower level sound system telling it to adjust the volume, great; but saving and restoring volume settings should not be its job, and certainly shouldn't happen by default.  If this is changed I may consider using kdemultimedia again.
Comment 4 Christian Esken 2004-12-28 13:24:49 UTC
Yes, this is a duplicate of bug #69320. Thus this bug is fixed.

And to Adam: You can simply disable volume restauration. Start KMix, open configuration dialog, unmark "Restore volumes".

Another remark to Adam: I agreem this is a "lower level problem". But it is an impossible job  to tell THAT 100 Linux distributors and also all the other OS vendors (SUN, SGI, *BSD, ...). So now you probably understand why KDE has to do it.

Chris




*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 69320 ***
Comment 5 Adam 2004-12-29 03:43:24 UTC
Christian Esken wrote:

> Another remark to Adam: I agreem this is a "lower level problem". But it is an impossible job  to tell THAT 100 Linux distributors and also all the other OS vendors (SUN, SGI, *BSD, ...). So now you probably understand why KDE has to do it.

No, actually I don't understand.  (By the way, did you make a typo?  It seems you meant to say "to tell THAT to 100 Linux ...").  The fact is, I use a distribution/sound architecture which actually does it properly (ALSA on Gentoo).  A program should assume it is running within a working environment, rather than trying to fix its environment to work properly; otherwise, bloat and bugs result.  I agree that it is impossible to tell 100 distributions and vendors to fix their software; but it is also not KDE's problem.  Instead of trying to fix things, it should have as its dependency one of a set of working sound architecture programs.

Don't you see that the only hope to having software that works perfectly is to do your best for your own software, assuming everyone else will make their software work perfectly?
Comment 6 Christian Esken 2004-12-31 16:06:20 UTC
Well, it is the distributors task to make a proper installation. If Gentoo does things right with volume restauration, it should ship with a default kmixrc that disables volume restauration.
I feel KMix is doing everything correct here. I rather suggest you tell the Gentoo people to fix their package.
Comment 7 Adam 2004-12-31 16:18:50 UTC
But isn't the reason the default is for kmix to do volume restoration because other things sometimes don't work?  Don't you see how ridiculous it is to make a default option based on the assumption that things don't work?  I don't even want to waste the time of the Gentoo developers with this one because they'd probably just laugh at it!
Comment 8 Christian Esken 2004-12-31 19:07:18 UTC
1) And I won't waste my time with 100 bug reports that would come in about not-working volume restauration. Changing defaults would break volume restauration for too many users.
2) Also I must argue, that the UI is often a better place than the OS, as it allows users to set their own specific defaults.
3) Again: That thing is configurable - everybody can disable it.

Because of these 3 reasons the deafult will not be changed. This is a design decision. Point.