[Blueprint sound-mixer] Include a graphical sound mixer by default

[Aere Greenway]

Blueprint changed by Aere Greenway:

Whiteboard changed:
  Option #1: amixer; needed to open a terminal, not suitable for a newbie / lazzy
  Option #2: pavucontrol (depending on libpulse libraries); can put one-click handy icon on panel
  I support pavucontrol, and I think it needs the whole pulse-audio kit, but if that is not an option, you need to find something else /nio
  
  Pavucontrol does require the pulse-audio kit, but I believe it is quite worth it (unless there is a performance hit I don't know of). A mucher better volume manager then any others.
  --Baron
  
  [amjjawad] +1
  and, this must be fixed: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/832939/volumecontrol.ogv
  
  [Srikanth - India]
  In simple words, every user would like to see easy to use VOlume controller as in Windows(or ubuntu)...with Sliders....To be honest, alsa mixer is not so user friendly :(...
  
  [vanyok] I support this initiative. Current sound mixer is too simple
  and lacks of functionality, and alsa mixer is too difficult for newbies
  to use.
  
  [Baron]@Amjjawad, for the default volume applet, you have to have
  pavucontrol install for it to work (as far as I know). As for indicator-
  volume, I don't think that is fixable really. It direcly calls gnome-
  volume-manager. The only thing that could be done is ln -s pavucontrol
  gnome-volume-manager, ect.
  
  [rafaellaguna] If you have the opportunity to see the Mate's mixer, it's
  great. it's a different version of alsa - mixer very simple. We could
  fork it ;)
  
  [Mélodie] Hi, I agree about alsamixer not easy to use for newcomers.
  
  But while trying other mixers in Lubuntu I could not find how to change alsamixer for another mixer, so I I purely removed the volume control plugin from the panel and replaced it with volumeicon-alsa which I configured to be started with the session and first configured it to use alsamixergui:
  it's a very light alternative to alsamixer, and if you still don't find it having a look which is consistent enough, gnome-alsamixer is what I currently use, which I would suggest. However the cons is it is much bigger on the disk space compared to alsamixergui because of the depends: 8687 additional kilobytes are installed. (alsamixergui: 115 kb)
  
  Here are two pics to get the idea:
  http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/Lubuntu/ScreenShots/volume-control_alsamixer-gui.png
  
  http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/Lubuntu/ScreenShots/volume-control_gnome-
  alsamixer.png
  
  alsamixer-gui is what I installed to my child's notebook where I seek
  lightness and ease at same time.
  
  I would not vote for pavu control which I found very difficult to handle
  when I need to switch from loudspeakers to headset and vice versa, I
  always had a hard time having the sound work again in the output. (When
  trying to use it with pulse-audio).
  
  [joern-schoenyan] Volti is really nice and quite light. https://code.google.com/p/volti/
  But: it is GTK, and we should think about the future with Qt. Not easy!
  
  [Mélodie]  Volti has several python packages as depends:
  ****
  Dependencies
      pygtk 2.16.0 or later
      pyalsaaudio 0.6 or later
      dbus-python 0.80.0 or later
      python-xlib 0.15rc1 or later (optional, used for keys events as an alternative to hal)
  
  ****
  
  and volumeicon-alsa has depends which are already in the distro, if I get it well from that list:
  http://packages.ubuntu.com/saucy/volumeicon-alsa
  
  [Baron] I have tried volumeicon-alsa and Volti. Volti doesn't detect my
  other sounds cards, and only works with the default soundcard, so
  useless to me (much like the default applet/mixer). Volumeicon-alsa
  works nice however. Not as nice as indicator-volume, but nice. Still
  need pavucontrol just like indicator-volume though.
  
  [Mélodie] it does not need "specifically" pavucontrol: the setup is done in the preferences to replace the default alsamixer with any mixer, such as "pavucontrol", or "alsamixer-gui", or "gnome-mixer", as per  the pics I already pointed to:
  http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/Lubuntu/ScreenShots/volume-control_alsamixer-gui.png
  
  http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/Lubuntu/ScreenShots/volume-control_gnome-
  alsamixer.png
  
  If pulseaudio is not installed, not to be used, then anything else than
  pavucontrol can be used.
  
  [gilir] Pulseaudio and any depending packages is out of the question.
  Also, any mixer which use a daemon is also out of the question. Adding
  more memory for just a mixer is not acceptable. If you find an alsa-
  based, without any daemon mechanism mixr, I can discuss it.
  
  [amjjawad] So, can we move forward regarding this suggestion? maybe on
  the mailing list or even here?
  
  [Aere] I would like to propose an "option 3", which would also
  facilitate the goal of moving to QT.  That option is to use the
  "qasmixer" package, which (in 14.04) uses the QT 4 libraries & toolset.
  It has the capability of manipulating a huge variety (all?) of the
  sound-card controls, including the "Synth" control of a Soundblaster
  Live sound-card (which always has to be raised from its default
  setting).  I think it is basically a new version of AlsaMixer, done on
  QT.  It may have the ability to select the default sound-card.  When you
  use it, select "Show device selection" from its view menu, and (in the
  right pane) select "hw : Card".  It will then let you control the
  settings for a particular sound-card (instead of just a single volume
  slider).
+ 
+ [Aere] I like the idea of including pulseaudio and pavucontrol in future
+ releases of Lubuntu, because when using the Java Sound (Gervill)
+ Synthesizer (which my Java music application does), the Java Sound Synth
+ configuration assumes (for all Ubuntu variants) that PulseAudio is used
+ for sound.  With UbuntuStudio (like other Ubuntu variants), it has its
+ own special mixer-configuration utility, and though it uses PulseAudio,
+ it doesn't need the "pavucontrol" package because of its own special
+ mixer utility.

-- 
Include a graphical sound mixer by default
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/lubuntu-brainstorming/+spec/sound-mixer