[alsa-devel] Bug in alsa-lib or alsamixer and amixer

[Colin Guthrie]

'Twas brillig, and Raymond Yau at 15/06/10 23:29 did gyre and gimble:
> 2010/6/16 Colin Guthrie <gmane at colin.guthr.ie>
> 
>> 'Twas brillig, and Raymond Yau at 15/06/10 00:43 did gyre and gimble:
>>> +12dB(400%) is even larger than the software gain 150% of PA
>>
>> Software gain of PA 150% = ~+11dB, so not as different as you imply.
>>
>> I've explained the cubic mapping already, so please don't use arbitrary,
>> differently calculated percentages when comparing things. It's like
>> comparing apples to oranges.
>>
>> Col
>>
>>
> When I changed the volume slider of the gnome sound applet ( select
> perference ) in Fedora 13 to maximum (i.e. PA 150% )
> 
> Seem to be bug in amixer and alsamixer
> 
> alsamixer also change to 150% but press any key change back to 100%

The fact that any key changes it back to 100% is kinda expected. It's
not designed to handle values >100% so it makes sense that it clamps it.
Annoying, but it makes sense.

> The volume range is only from 0 to  65536
> 
> why did alsa-lib allow alsa-pulse plugin to set it outside the range ,
> alsamixer and amixer also display 150% ?
> 
> amixer -D pulse
> Simple mixer control 'Master',0
>   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
>   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
>   Limits: Playback 0 - 65536
>   Mono:
>   Front Left: Playback 98304 [150%] [on]
>   Front Right: Playback 98304 [150%] [on]


While I agree this could be thought of as a bug, it's actually the
nicest possible display for a system that has no concept of volumes > 100%.

That said, the correct fix would be a nice mechanism for marking the
100% mark. e.g. specifying the limits as a triplet, lower, normal (aka
100%) and max.

AFAIK, no such system is currently in place.

An alternative would be to scale the alsa volume control to the full
range, e.g. make 0 - 98304[1] the range it accepts. But this sucks as
the percentage shown in alsa is not the same as the percentage shown in
other GUIs.

In a practical sense, the current setup is probably less problematic
than the latter suggestion.

Col

[1] FWIW, this precice value will likely change. I've not yet actioned
it but it's likely to be fixed at +11dB which IIRC is slightly above
150%. 11dB is just a figure that we felt was "sensible" with regards to
GUI consistency and I'll try and push this out ot all the UIs I can.


-- 

Colin Guthrie
gmane(at)colin.guthr.ie
http://colin.guthr.ie/

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