speaker/volume Problem

[Larry Hartman]

On Thursday 31 May 2007 08:58:29 pm Paul Kaplan wrote:
> I am currently running Kubuntu Feisty on a Thinkpad T43, having recently
> moved up from Edgy.  My external speakers, which are attached through
> the headphone jack, have their own volume control.
>
> On Edgy (and Dapper), I could use the Thinkpad mute button to turn off
> the internal speakers and use only the external speakers.  The external
> speaker volume was controlled independently by both kmix and the hardware
> volume control.  If the internal speakers were un-muted (through the
> Thinkpad button), their volume was controlled by Thinkpad volume buttons
> and kmix.  So kmix controlled the system volume at the software level, and
> each set of speakers had its own independent hardware volume control.
>
> With Feisty, the Thinkpad buttons control kmix directly, not the Thinkpad
> speakers.  As a result, I can't turn off the Thinkpad speakers (and
> their marginal sound quality) and still use the external speakers.  If I
> use the Thinkpad mute button, it mutes the entire sound system.  As a
> result, in order to get sound out of the external speakers, I need some
> volume on the internal speakers.
>
> I don't want to permanently inactivate the internal speakers since I do
> use them when I'm not connected to the dock.
>
> How can I restore the old situation where the Thinkpad sound buttons are
> controlling only the internal speakers, not kmix?

Have you played with the mixer portion of KMix at all?  There is a tab 
labled "switches" in the window that may do what you need.

You can also add a "Sound Mixer" applet to your panel that will put some of 
the options of KMix onto your panel in the form of tiny sliders...this has 
been useful to me.

Larry