Subject: alsa-utils: only stores levels for current system instead of supporting booting on multiple systems

From: Paul Wise <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:44:41 +0800

Package: alsa-utils
Version: 1.0.23-3
Severity: wishlist

One of my Debian installs is booted on different machines, I frequently
move the disk between my laptop and desktop. One of the issues I
encountered is that the audio levels are reset when I move between
machines. Specifically the Master Front level is set to zero. I also get
warnings about cards about being present during bootup.

The ideal situation would be:

Store the mixer settings in a per-system or per-audio-device file.

Have a cron job delete mixer settings for cards that haven't been used
in 6 months or so.

This would help roaming folks who boot Debian from a USB key on various
machines, including Internet cafes.

Ideally pulseaudio would take over this job (since it is per-user) but
alsa-utils needs to also do it for those who don't use pulseaudio.

-- 
bye,
pabs

http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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From: Elimar Riesebieter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2010 19:15:24 +0100

Hello Paul or should I say Paps?

first: your gpg key has been expired ;-)

> The ideal situation would be:

Well, just an idea:

I am using netenv in such cases. You can define a per hostname
dependend /var/lib/alsa. This is the place where the soundcontrols
are stored. As well you can define a asoundrc (etc or $home) per
hostname for the diffrent sound devices and you're done.

> Have a cron job delete mixer settings for cards that haven't been used

Isn't that to complicated?

> machines, including Internet cafes.

Nice idea, but you know unixes are providing many solutions and are
always a challenge. If one uses a stick or hd for more than one
machine we can expect that user can handle those comfortable ideas
with provided tools by himself, isn't it?

> alsa-utils needs to also do it for those who don't use pulseaudio.

Elimar

-- 
  Do you smell something burning or ist it me?

---

From: Paul Wise <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2010 09:35:57 +0800

> hostname for the diffrent sound devices and you're done.

Per-hostname is insufficient since it is the same Debian install on one
hard drive, but I am booting it on different hardware.

> Isn't that to complicated?

It would meet my needs and the needs of other roaming Debian users. I
think it would be exactly enough flexibility to support all users.

> with provided tools by himself, isn't it?

It would be almost trivial to support this within alsa-utils and there
are zero to minimal downsides for non-roaming users so I don't see why
it couldn't be implemented within alsa-utils (apart from lack of time).

-- 
bye,
pabs