Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

microaide · 2015-07-22 22:56:49

The Volti mixer has a severe bug as far as selecting which volume controls will be displayed in the mixer. It turns out to be very difficult to display just the controls you want because the checkbox for enabling a control (under Select Controls) often ends up controlling the display of a DIFFERENT volume control, or may have no effect whatsoever. See my post under "Help & Support (Stable)". I recommend getting rid of Volti until it is fixed (if that ever happens). I have no firm recommendation for a replacement, but I liked pavucontrol in !# (though it requires pulseaudio, but so does Skype, which I also use).

Anyone else know of a good mixer? I do a lot of sound recording.

Sector11 · 2015-07-22 23:03:24

qasmixer - sits on panel - controls volume and looks like a mixer not a speaker

That's it - bottom middle, beside the artha icon.

smacz · 2015-07-22 23:16:15

Ewww (just tried it out). What...is it qt? It doesn't inherant the GTK theme at all. Just that...that...blue.

EDIT: Correct Link

Last edited by smacz (2015-07-22 23:27:54)

Sector11 · 2015-07-23 00:43:39

Yea, kinda ugly - it was MUCH better in #! Wheezy:

smacz · 2015-07-23 01:16:37

I checked, yeah, it's qt. I think everything in BunsenLabs is GTK if I'm not mistaken (though I haven't looked at it).

Did Wheezy have any qt default programs? I just really don't use qt programs except where I have to, e.g. Electrum and Keepassx.

Sector11 · 2015-07-23 02:06:20

I have no idea ... that is way over this noobs head.

Whatever made qasmixer look the way it did in Waldorf (Wheezy) I'd like to have in Bunsen though

KrunchTime · 2015-07-23 07:15:08

smacz wrote:

Ewww (just tried it out). What...is it qt? It doesn't inherant the GTK theme at all. Just that...that...blue.
EDIT: Correct Link

tynman · 2015-07-23 16:36:49

Back to the OP suggestion to drop Volti... If you look at the (sparse) documentation for the Volti program, its primary purpose is to provide a system-wide audio volume control which can be adjusted using a control in the system tray. I think for a large majority of BunsenLabs users, it will work just fine for that -- because most users are using their sound card to either play music through a music player program like VLC or Clementine or whatever, OR to listen to videos being viewed through a web browser. I haven't seen many (any?) complaints that it doesn't do that well.

Yes, Volti also provides "mixing", to allow multiple audio sources to "share" the computer's sound card simultaneously, but I suspect that is a relatively rare use case.

For anyone who "do[es] a lot of sound recording", I agree you will probably need to look at other audio mixing software. (I don't record audio, so I can't offer any suggestions - but I have no doubt there are several options to choose from.)

I can't speak for BunsenLabs developers, and I don't know what-all went into the decision to choose Volti to replace whatever volume control was being used in #!, but I doubt they were too concerned about Volti's mixing capabilities.

Ben

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-07-23 18:14:02

@OP: Have you tried setting pavucontrol as the default mixer?

sudo apt-get install pavucontrol

Then right-click on the volti icon and go to Preferences → Mixer and uncheck the "Use internal mixer" & "Run in terminal" boxes then enter "pavucontrol" in the "External mixer" box.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2015-07-23 18:15:31)

KrunchTime · 2015-07-23 21:45:27

@tynman: But pnmixer will work as both a system-wide volume control and a mixer. The only issue for the development team is that it isn't (yet) in the Debian repos.

@HoaS: Thank you for the tip.

@microaide: You can install PNMixer using dpkg or gdebi. Just understand that currently you'll have to compile the pkg on your own if it's upgraded and you need the upgrade, or hope someone else compiles it and shares the resulting deb.

If you decide to tryout PNMixer, remember to make the necessary changes in /home/<user>/.config/openbox/autostart.

Last edited by KrunchTime (2015-07-23 22:15:58)

pvsage · 2015-07-23 21:53:32

smacz wrote:

Ewww (just tried it out). What...is it qt? It doesn't inherant the GTK theme at all. Just that...that...blue.
EDIT: Correct Link

Do you have qt4-qtconfig installed? With it, you should be able to tweak Qt settings to more closely match your gtk theme.

EDIT: Scratch that; qtconfig doesn't do anything to the widgets within the qasmixer window. Apparently qasmixer uses its own hard-coded theme.

Last edited by pvsage (2015-07-23 22:19:36)

ohnonot · 2015-07-26 22:52:05

a powder blue prius... not bad...
but a well-coded qt app (4 or 5) can be made to listen to gtk theming.
apart from that, please don't mix up appearance (qt vs gtk) with sound architecture (alsa vs pulseaudio), please.

any questions concerning the latter, reply to this thread.

hhh · 2015-07-27 22:45:09

Just remove Volti if you don't like it...

sudo apt-get purge volti && sudo apt-get --purge autoremove

Logout and login.

Last edited by hhh (2015-07-27 22:45:54)

brontosaurusrex · 2015-07-28 00:02:46

The alternative (I guess only if "we" are using alsa) would be: volumeicon-alsa, with a config like this
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bront … volumeicon

pros:
- fast,
- looks good/vintage

cons:
- alsamixer run in urxvt is keyboard only as it seems, one would have to use ctrl+c or esc to exit the window (if urxvt is set to not use decorations ...).
- silly notifications when using scroll-wheel on the icon
- forced positioning will probably not work for bunsen (-geometry 100x30-20-50), as it is against top/bottom tint2 gui selector logic.

scrot:

Last edited by brontosaurusrex (2015-07-28 00:33:17)

Nili · 2015-07-28 18:19:50

^ +1

Simple, clean, faster, practical and productive

MrDowntempo · 2015-08-28 17:46:29

Volti was responsible for a different bug on my system and replacing it with volumeicon-alsa fixed my problem. I would recommend volti gets dropped too.

Here is the thread:
http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=40500

ostrołęk · 2015-08-28 18:17:57

Isn't alsa, pulseaudio, volumeicon, pavucontrol or xfce4-mixer enough?

hhh · 2015-08-28 19:41:40

@ostrolk, huh?

@MrDowntempo, what bug? Also, you never responded in that thread to my last questions.

The decision to use volti over volumeicon-alsa was purely aesthetic... volumeicon's default theme results in a black icon over a black panel, while we can configure volti to use Faenza icons by default.

That said, I've installed volumeicon and have configured the theme as described here...
http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=39737

Switching to volumeicon is easy enough... install it, replace volti with volumeicon in ~/.config/openbox/autostart (the command to use is "volumeicon" w/out quotes) and logout/login. Remove volti if everything is working. Volti is heavier on RAM usage than volumeicon. We'll definitely discuss this. If we can configure volumeicon to match the other panel icons and not be nearly invisible, I'll recommend switching to it.

Thanks for the feedback!

The Debian bugs for volti I've found that are still open...
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … bug=786728
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … bug=782592
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … bug=782748

MrDowntempo · 2015-08-28 20:26:10

@hhh The big is if I use volti to mute (the icon itself) audio remains muted but unmuting via volti doesn't work. Instead I have to use pavmixer or some other command to unmute.

hhh · 2015-08-28 20:31:41

Right, that's this one...
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … bug=786728

Which is a variation on the other bugs one can find about unmuting unmutes alsa but leaves pulse muted.

What I was hoping to find out was if you currently have the backported xfce4-volumed package installed too, as I think that's part of the fix.

MrDowntempo · 2015-08-28 21:51:13

Yes. I stated that in the thread. Backported xfce4 volumed was installed but that alone didn't help. Only after removing volti and replacing it did I get the expected unmuting behavior.

hhh · 2015-08-28 21:56:14

OK, thanks for the info. It's different for me on my hardware and the same with both volti and volumeicon, if I mute via the applet, un-muting from there still doesn't work, I have to use my keyboard unmute button.

ostrołęk · 2015-08-29 16:53:20

hhh wrote:

@ostrolk, huh?

I have only alsa, pulseaudio, pavucontrol and volumeicon.
The volumeicon's preferences give you 5 icon choices, default, white gnome, black gnome, tango and blue bar.

hhh · 2015-08-29 17:48:10

I don't know what you mean by "enough". Hydrogen currently has pulseaudio/alsa for sound, pavucontrol is pulse's mixer and we're using volti for a panel applet. This thread is about dropping volti, which leaves the question of what will replace it in the tint2 notification panel?

We're looking into volumeicon as it's lighter on RAM, but johnraff's discovered a visual glitch that screams "lack of polish". If you scroll on the applet to adjust volume, you get 2 notifications.

I've opened an issue on Maato's Volumeicon GitHub page, we'll see if he responds. In the meantime, if anyone has a workaround for this, please post it. If we can't find one, we'll most likely stick with volti, one can always replace it with their applet of choice.

MrDowntempo · 2015-08-29 19:00:50

Here's a picture of my desktop running volumeicon-alsa. I'm pretty sure it's obeying my icon theme. I am however afflicted by the double notification bug too.

CrunchBang Linux

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#1 2015-07-22 22:56:49

Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#2 2015-07-22 23:03:24

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#3 2015-07-22 23:16:15

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#4 2015-07-23 00:43:39

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#5 2015-07-23 01:16:37

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#6 2015-07-23 02:06:20

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#7 2015-07-23 07:15:08

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#8 2015-07-23 16:36:49

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#9 2015-07-23 18:14:02

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#10 2015-07-23 21:45:27

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#11 2015-07-23 21:53:32

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#12 2015-07-26 22:52:05

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#13 2015-07-27 22:45:09

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#14 2015-07-28 00:02:46

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#15 2015-07-28 18:19:50

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#16 2015-08-28 17:46:29

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#17 2015-08-28 18:17:57

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#18 2015-08-28 19:41:40

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#19 2015-08-28 20:26:10

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#20 2015-08-28 20:31:41

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#21 2015-08-28 21:51:13

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#22 2015-08-28 21:56:14

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#23 2015-08-29 16:53:20

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#24 2015-08-29 17:48:10

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

#25 2015-08-29 19:00:50

Re: Volti mixer has a severe bug, please drop it

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