Re: [Bug 623] New: Volume not remembered.

[Martin J. Bligh]

>> The OSS audio drivers ac97 code now starts up with record muted. 
> 
> Okay, so I guess this will then cover all cases ? (Changebar
> marks OSS addition.)
> 
>   ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) is now the preferred
>   architecture for sound support, instead of the older OSS (Open
>   Sound System). Note that, in ALSA, all volume settings default
>| to zero, and all channels default to being "muted". Also some
>| OSS drivers in 2.5 initialize certain mixer settings to zero.
>   
>   User space therefore needs to explicitly increase the volume,
>   and "unmute" the respective audio channels before any sound
>   can be heard.
>   
>   Mixers not explicitly supporting the "mute" functionality will
>   usually "unmute" sources when setting the volume to a value
>   above zero.
>   
>   More information about ALSA, including configuration and OSS
>   compatibility, can be found in Documentation/sound/alsa/
> 
> (I guess a simpler rule would be "if there's no sound, check the
> mixer - and you don't want to know why you have to do this" :-)

BTW, I realised there's a much simpler solution to the "but there's no
sound coming out" problem .... xmms and friends should just give the user a
warning on startup (or on play) if the main volume or pcm channel is at 0
(or muted).

M.