speaker/volume Problem

[Paul Kaplan]

On Thursday 31 May 2007 9:23:01 pm Larry Hartman wrote:
> 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
The Sound Mixer applet seems to have the same controls as kmix and I've tried 
a bunch of settings on kmix, including the switches, all  to no avail.  The 
problem seems to be that the Thinkpad buttons control the kmix master channel 
(whcihever is set) in Feisty, but the hardware only in prior versions.