By default absvolume only accesses /dev/mixer at startup and when you move the slider. It does have a -u switch where you can specify an update time in milliseconds for it to poll the mixer. I would be interested to see what happened if you tried to run the alsa setup without killing absvolume, it should work. But I do not understand why the tray icon doesn't show, it should default to volume 0.prehistoric wrote:There are some hidden problems caused by launching absvolume without a working mixer. This results in an occupied space in the tray with no icon, which can confuse people who don't look for such things. I used Pprocess to kill absvolume, then ran alsa setup. This succeeds and barks, but does not give me a volume icon. Restarting X brings up the mixer and icon.
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Running alsa setup again brings sound back, for that session.
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My personal prejudice is that we have too damn many processes dealing with something as fundamentally sequential as sound.
I wonder if launching zmixer without running alsa setup is enough to bring back the sound on subsequent boots.
When I boot using a pupsave absvolume always comes up with the muted icon even though sound can be heard. It works if a remove the startup code from .xinitrc and just put a symlink to absvolume in /root/Startup instead. The fact that it works when started later in the boot makes me wonder if the sound setup has been backgrounded.
My understanding is the absvolume,zmixer and alsa mixer have no effect on the sound setup unless they are running and having their controls tweaked by a user.