Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
Oops? My apologies. I didn't mean to accuse anyone in particular of
causing my problem. It makes it easier if someone either top or bottom
posts, but I'm certainly not going to insist on it. I also need to
figure out how to just reply to the list, rather than to the person who
sent the message as well as the list. Maybe I should've read my message
through better before sending, I didn't mean to accuse anyone of
anything or sound irritable.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/22/2015 04:51 PM, Simo Sorce wrote:
> On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 16:31 -0500, kendell clark wrote:
>> hi
>> Just a polite request. I'm having trouble following the thread because
>> there are so many intermingled responses, with different bits of it
>> quoted and commented on. Would everyone mind putting their responses
>> either on the top or the bottom of the message? Top would be better for
>> me, but I also don't want to irritate anyone, since I've been yelled at
>> on the arch list for top posting, even though as a blind person it makes
>> following messages, especially long threads like this, easier.
>> Sorry for the OT
> 
> This list traditionally follows the good rule of *not* top-posting, and
> commenting inline.
> 
> You are the only one top-posting and breaking the thread as far as I can
> see. You also commented on a sub-thread that had no top-posting
> whatsoever and seem perfectly understandable, and replied to my post as
> if I was the cause of your trouble (which doesn't seem so from the
> content of your post), so your comment may come a little bit irritating.
> 
> It sucks that gmail has poor threading support and confuses you, but you
> chose that tool, maybe you can find something better.
> 
> Simo.
> 
>>
>>
>> On 09/22/2015 01:29 PM, Simo Sorce wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 09:56 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 15:51 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 17.09.15 20:59, Germano Massullo (germano.massullo at gmail.com)
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
>>>>>> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The
>>>>>> KMix
>>>>>> volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
>>>>>> application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked,
>>>>>> having
>>>>>> the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful
>>>>>> experience.
>>>>>> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a
>>>>>> 100%
>>>>>> audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow
>>>>>> an
>>>>>> application to make such sudden changes.
>>>>>> To avoid that, you have to set
>>>>>> flat-volumes = no
>>>>>> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
>>>>>
>>>>> This is a non-sensical request. If an app uses the mixer APIs to set
>>>>> the volume of something to very loud, that's what happens. Flat
>>>>> volumes have nothing to do with that.
>>>>>
>>>>> I mean, the app you are using shouldn't set the volume like this, and
>>>>> that's the key here. If you turn off flat volumes you win about
>>>>> nothing, you just work around this specific app. Soon the next app
>>>>> will come along and play the same game with the actual device volume,
>>>>> and you won *zero*.
>>>>>
>>>>> Don't mix flat volumes with misbheaving apps. Turning off flat
>>>>> volumes
>>>>> is a hack around the broken apps at best, and completely pointless..
>>>>
>>>> For better or worse, misbehaving apps are a reality that is probably
>>>> not going to go away... I think we need to have a volume control
>>>> approach that is at least somewhat tolerant against such apps and has
>>>> some safeguards.
>>>
>>> Indeed, sticking your head in the sand and saying it is a misbehaving
>>> app is not a useful answer.
>>>
>>> Apps misbehave, its a fact of life, you can deal with it, or not deal
>>> with it, if you do not deal with it you have a bad system that causes
>>> grief.
>>>
>>> I disabled flat-volumes long ago for the same reasons people had to in
>>> this thread. Yes in theory I can beg every app to be perfect, but in the
>>> mean time I can't get my ears blasted (or in some cases end up with
>>> un-audible input/output). whatever it is with flat-volumes I could never
>>> figure out what was going on, while w/o flat-volumes it is very simple
>>> as each app is individually either low or high and an app raising its
>>> volume doesn't cause all other apps to disappear never to return ...
>>>
>>> Disabling flat-volumes may be a workaround but it works very well
>>> apparently. So something probably needs to be improved in flat-volumes,
>>> and until then it is as good an option to disable it by default.
>>>
>>> Simo.
>>>
> 
>