alsamixer: lock levels

[Phil Dobbin]

On 04/07/2013 09:21 PM, Nils Kassube wrote:

> Phil Dobbin wrote:
>> My three kids all have Ubuntu machines (2 off 12.04 & 1 off 12.10) &
>> boy, do they love You Tube. Which, in itself, is no big thing but,
>> kids being kids, the volume levels can get ear shattering when all
>> three are at it together.
>>
>> Is there anyway I can ssh into each machine (ssh & ssh keys are
>> already set up) & lock alsamixer's output levels to say, 25%? Or,
>> indeed, any other way to tame the output levels. They're using You
>> Tube in Firefox if that's any help.
> 
> I don't think there is a way to actually limit the mixer level. But you 
> could run a script in the background to check the mixer level. If the 
> level is higher than a specified value, it would reduce it to the max. 
> allowed level. The script would use amixer which is useful for scripts 
> while alsamixer is made for interactive operation. If you need help 
> writing the script, please provide the output of the command
> 
> amixer controls
> 
> (only from one machine for a start).
> 
> Anyway, I'm not so sure it is useful to try to solve social problems 
> with technical means.

Could try scripting it I suppose. I can do just about everything else in
bash, so why not?

As for social problems, technology is perfect. For example: no more
tears at bedtime. Cron job runs, computers shut down & kids go to sleep.
They were used to it in a week. I wish the same could be said for a lot
of the other stuff I have to do ;-)

Cheers,

  Phil...

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