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Poettering: Rethinking PID 1

Poettering: Rethinking PID 1

Posted May 7, 2010 1:06 UTC (Fri) by alankila (subscriber, #47141)
In reply to: Poettering: Rethinking PID 1 by farnz
Parent article: Poettering: Rethinking PID 1

Here's an idea: if pulse wouldn't want to adjust the analog mixer settings, a knowledgeable user could select the optimal setting for his setup and then maybe flame somebody (distributor?) for having provided poor defaults.

I had personally some annoyance with pulse's tendency to force a particular mixer state each time it started, and unfortunately it disabled digital output for applications that did not talk through pulse, and thus I lost sound for a number of applications.


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Poettering: Rethinking PID 1

Posted May 7, 2010 7:18 UTC (Fri) by farnz (guest, #17727) [Link]

This "optimal" setting you talk about doesn't exist. On my el-cheapo card, I want it to be consistently as low as possible without being so low that I can't reach the volume I want. This means about 25% for normal desktop sounds, about 30% when playing games, and about 50% when playing movies.

With Pulse's auto-adjusting going on, this Just Works. Without the auto-adjust, I would constantly be playing with the volume controls to make it happen.

Poettering: Rethinking PID 1

Posted May 7, 2010 14:09 UTC (Fri) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]

Oh well. The problem specifically was that this magic approach of trying to adjust every possible mixer didn't really work for many people, who discovered that volume levels jumped up and down inconsistently. But I suppose at least you are happy. I just wish Pulse hadn't attempted that, feels too clever by half.

Still, in the future new drivers will probably be tested with the pulse's requirements in mind and thus all the pain is temporary, right?

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