selecting audio inputs with pulseaudio

[Tim]

Has selecting audio inputs with pulseaudio improved any since Fedora 20?
On this machine, I can't find a way to use the line or mic input, by my
own choosing.  e.g. For wanting to record something on the computer.

In the sound preferences, I have a sliding volume control next to a mic
symbol, and some kind of volume indicator below it.  That, from time to
time, I find seems to pay attention to a microphone, but not always.

Under that is a box with a radio selection button for "built-in audio
analog stereo," which I presume just means the on-board sound card, or
another card (if I had one) rather than supposedly being a way to select
individual sound sources on a card.

I can play with the CLI alsamixer tool, but that seems rather hit and
miss, too, as well as being awful and extremely primitive.  Not to
mention being just a two volume control for pulseaudio (master &
capture), or I can change to the "0 HDA Intel" sound card, and get a
plethora of sliders (not all of them have a corresponding socket on the
sound card, and another vague "capture" fader).

If I try using a program like audacity, I get input choices in the
program like pulse (next to useless), front mic 0, rear mic 0, line 0,
front mic 1, rear mic 1, line 1, which is a course of experimentation to
find which one might actually work, and it doesn't behave the same way
each time I use the program.

If I try using a program like skype, sometimes I can get it to pay
attention to the mike, but never to any other input source.

-- 
tim at localhost ~]$ uname -rsvp

Linux 3.19.8-100.fc20.i686 #1 SMP Tue May 12 17:42:35 UTC 2015 i686

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George Orwell's '1984' was supposed to be a warning against tyranny, not
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