[TriLUG] [Leaplist] Audio f15 v f17

[Steve Litt]

On Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:25:24 -0500
Jason Boxman <jasonb at edseek.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 12:48 PM, Bryan J Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org>
> wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 12:20 PM, Jason Boxman <jasonb at edseek.com>
> > wrote:
> >> Completely unrelated.  The VLC behavior seemed to be a side-effect.
> >> First placed I noticed it.
> >
> > Then put all of that in the Bugzilla.  Try to list all of the
> > components involved, what are your various, expected results, and
> > then give specific examples, including VLC.  That way they can not
> > only reproduce the issues, but either confirm or reject each
> > expectation.
> >
> > Remember, you can _always_ comment on your own ticket if you find
> > more information or additional issues later.  And you can _always_
> > refer back to old tickets, especially if they continue in newer
> > Fedora issues and were not addressed in releases that are EoL.
> 
> I finally filed BTS # 910096.
> 
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=910096

I kinda-sorta reproduced your symptom on Xubuntu 12.10.

I couldn't reproduce it til I took your initial "mute" to mean "turn
Pulseaudio Volume Control down to 0". Then, looking at alsamixer while
turning up the output tab volume on Pulseaudio Volume Control
(executable called pavucontrol on my machine), I get the following:

pulse % | Alsa PCM  | Alsa Mastr
     0  |       0   |     0
     1  |      25   |     0
     2  |      66   |     0
     3  |     100   |     0
     4  |     100   |     0
     6  |     100   |     0
     7  |     100   |     0
     8  |     100   |     0
     9  |     100   |     0
    10  |     100   |     0
    11  |      97   |     0   WTF???
    12  |     100   |     0
    13  |      96   |     0  
    14  |      99   |     0  
    15  |     100   |     0
    16  |     100   |     0
    17  |     100   |     0
    18  |     100   |     1  BOUT DAM TIME!!!
    19  |     100   |     2
    20  |     100   |     4
    21  |      99   |     5
    22  |      97   |     7
    23  |     100   |     7
    24  |     100   |     8
    25  |      99   |    10

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera

Subjectively, with my ear, I can verify that between Pulsaudio 3% and
Pulseaudio 18, there's little if any variation -- its feint.

Pavucontrol's algorithm for turning percentages into master/pcm
combinations is flawed at best. I'm glad you pointed this out to me
(and about a half a million other people).

In all fairness to Pavucontrol, I think the intent was to raise volume
logrithmically, which is how we hear volume. But there are better ways
to do it than have all progress cease between 3% and 18%.

If you find a better volume control than pavucontrol, please let us
know. If you can't find a better volume control than pavucontrol, you
and I could probably make one. If we make it out of Python, there might
not even be any dependencies. It's just a matter of keeping track, and
sending ALSA commands.

Thanks,

SteveT