Subject: alsa-utils initialization script not effective any more since move to systemd

From: Samuel Thibault <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 May 2021 03:06:40 +0200

Package: alsa-utils
Version: 1.2.4-1
Severity: important
Tags: a11y

Hello,

Since the move to systemd, the alsa-utils init script is not getting
started at all any more. This broke setting the initial volumes of sound
cards to hearable values, which was essential for speech accessibility
of a Debian system. It seems some drivers initialize with a very low
volume. We cannot chase all such drivers, that was precisely why the
sanify_levels call from alsa-utils was made to just use amixer to set
proper volumes of Master/PCM/etc.

How to reproduce:

- install Debian with a graphical desktop enabled, so that the
alsa-utils gets automatically installed
- at first reboot, run amixer, see that the Master/PCM/etc. levels are not at 80%
- $ source /usr/share/alsa/utils.sh
- $ sanify_levels 0
- run amixer, see that the Master/PCM/etc. levels are now properly set
more or less at 80%

For speech to be hearable in general immediately after installation,
levels must be more or less at 80% at the second step, not only after
calling sanify_levels by hand.

Samuel

-- System Information:
Debian Release: bullseye/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'testing-debug'), (500, 'stable-debug'), (500, 'proposed-updates-debug'), (500, 'proposed-updates'), (500, 'oldoldstable'), (500, 'buildd-unstable'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (500, 'oldstable'), (1, 'experimental-debug'), (1, 'buildd-experimental'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 5.12.0 (SMP w/8 CPU threads)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages alsa-utils depends on:
ii  kmod              28-1
ii  libasound2        1.2.4-1.1
ii  libatopology2     1.2.4-1.1
ii  libc6             2.31-11
ii  libfftw3-single3  3.3.8-2
ii  libncursesw6      6.2+20201114-2
ii  libsamplerate0    0.2.1+ds0-1
ii  libtinfo6         6.2+20201114-2
ii  lsb-base          11.1.0

alsa-utils recommends no packages.

Versions of packages alsa-utils suggests:
ii  dialog  1.3-20201126-1

-- no debconf information

-- 
Samuel
<g> r: et la marmotte, elle écrit un papier IPDPS