From alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Sun May 17 16:37:35 1998
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Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 16:37:32 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Jaroslav Kysela <perex@jcu.cz>
To: Alan Robinson <ar@vt.edu>
cc: alsa-devel@jcu.cz
Subject: Re: Mixer Defaults
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On Sun, 17 May 1998, Alan Robinson wrote:

> >Your problem is probably in muting (please, read FAQ before someone send
> >mail to this list):
> >
> >Q: Driver is installed and sucessfully loaded in kernel, but it doesn't
> >   produce any sound. What's wrong?
> >A: You should raise volume for mixer channels and/or unmute mixer channels.
> >   Look for alsa-utils package at http://alsa.jcu.cz where are native mixers.
> 
> Like others, I feel I must express my disatisfaction with this default of
> muting all channels.  Sure, all channnels on, at full volume, will
> interduce noise, but when the user starts out, they care about whether the
> driver is installed correctly, not whether the sound is as clear and
> balanced as possilble.  

There isn't problem only with noise. Some high default volume can damage
your ears when you using headphones for example..

I'm still thinking that default mixer settings in kernel driver isn't
needed. What about to create some script which initialize volume to
defaults over /proc filesystem? Developers or users should simply prepare
some default volume settings for soundcard and put it to this script or
some defaults database which this script will use.

> The defaults should be set so as to most useful, and most likely to need no
                                           ^^^^^^

The question is if we know most useful values... ALSA driver have for
example generic driver for ES1688 (and probably ES1788, ES1868) soundcards
and I (as author of code) don't know about all soundcards which uses these
chips and about amplifier on these soundcards (thus final volume level
isn't known).

> change.  Few people will want all channels on, at full volume, but even
> fewer (dare I say none?) will want them all muted.  Sure, chances are good
> they will start messing around with the mixer some time in the future, but
> that should be to make their card sound sweat as possible, instead of
> required, in order to make it function at all!
> 
> -- Alan.

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@jcu.cz>
Academic Computer Centre, University of South Bohemia
Branisovska 31, C. Budejovice, CZ-370 05 Czech Republic



