Request for Comments (RFC): Potential change in setting sound card volume on boot

[Michael R. Head]

On Wed, 2007-06-27 at 15:25 -0400, Daniel T. Chen wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-06-27 at 08:32 -0700, Michael R. Head wrote:
> > My feeling is that levels
> > should be restored before gdm beats its drums (this is particularly
> > needful for the "laptops in meetings" case). Further, requiring users to
> > modify stuff in etc (or adding a new admin screen with a preference)
> > isn't going to work for a more users. This is most important for
> > machines with just one user, it's less critical for multi-user machines.
> 
> Just so I understand your response, are you stating that the login sound
> for a graphical user login should be _muted_?  If so, this is relatively
> straightforward to test.  Simply move 
> /etc/udev/rules.d/85-alsa.rules, and reboot.  Is the login sound
> audible?

What I was trying to get at is that if I muted (or turned down) the
volume, when I boot up, it should be at that level before gdm pops up. 

For example, I may reboot my laptop (for whatever reason), in a meeting
or in a library, and if I muted it before rebooting, it shouldn't make
any sound when it boots up.

> > Is there some way to be as smart/correct as the desktop mixer applets
> > with respect to level and toggle settings without requiring a user to be
> > logged in with the desktop up and running?
> 
> Yes and no.  Yes as in the current scheme uses /etc/init.d/alsa-utils
> (invoked from the above udev rule) to forcibly set as many matching mixer
> elements as possible.  It does not require a user to login.  No
> as in this scheme has its drawbacks as outlined in the original post.

Right. alsa-utils isn't smart enough to do it right (or so I gather from
the OP). At the same time, the argument seems to be that mixer_applet
_is_ smart enough to do things right.

Should it not be possible to extract the smarts from mixer_applet and
put it into alsa-utils (or some other startup/shutdown script)?

> Thanks,
> Daniel Chen
-- 
Michael R. Head <burner at suppressingfire.org>
http://www.suppressingfire.org/~burner/
http://suppressingfire.livejournal.com
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