thinkpad: hardware and software audio mixer are not syncronised

huhu

i have a x24 and i can confirm this (even if i didn't noticed this at first)

Also the little 'splash' for sound volume is very long to come on screen :-/

Correct.

Pressing 'down' moves the hardware-mixer down 1/14th and the software mixer down 1/12th.

Pressing 'up' moves the hardware-mixer up 1/14th and the software-mixer up 1/30th.

Not sure what to do about this, it only shows up because of the combination of hacks (a) to get the ThinkPad volume-keys working and (b) because the gnome-settings-daemon has asymmetric volume-steps (one of which is too big and one of which is too small).

Apple and everyone else have settled on 14/15/16 steps which is about right and about the right speed for volume key repeats.

I can confirm this also on a Thinkpad T40p using Dapper Beta freshly installed.

When pushing the "down" volume button, it moves the progress bar down 1/12th, but when pushing the "up" volume button, it moves the progress bar up 1/30th only.

This is not a bug! Changing the volume down quickly is extremely useful, because often you want to tell the computer to JUST SHUT UP!! However, changing the volume up in a hurry is not useful in the same way. We discussed this on irc and I remember at least 3 or 4 of us all agreeing that this is a feature rather than a bug, and a couple of those were core developers, so I'm marking this bug as Rejected for now. Please reopen it if you strongly disagree, and give your reasons!

Thanks very much!

if you are in a hurry then you use the mute-button, right?

Yeah this bug was closed too fast i think ...

Matthew, note that this is about the interaction of the hardware and software mixers, not purely about the choice to have unbalanced weighting on the software-mixer movement.

do you mean that there is no possible "bug" fix ?

I'm sorry, but I think we should skip this feature from hotkey-setup until there's a better solution for syncing the hardware and software mixers.

Yes, the end solution I think will be to monitor when the software mixer status changes and then sych this (both the mute status and the rounded volume level) to the hardware mixer.

This should cope with all the playing that any GUI utilities might be doing.

I must say I believe the discussion on this bug has made it drift away from the issue the bug was originally posted on. The original post seems to reflect on the fact that there are different step sizes in the software mixer when using volume up/down. I support that behaviour and don't think that should be changed. What I do want to say is a bug is the matter Paul Sladen and Whoppie mentioned. I will try to clarify what I mean below.

Since the thinkpad volume buttons (the physical ones on the laptop) which control the hardware mixer has one step size and the software mixer (which is triggered to change when using the thinkpad volume buttons) has another step size we end up with unpredictable volume control. This behaviuor is not acceptable and should be changed.

I belive that the best solution in this case would be to separate the hardware and software mixers by disabling the volume buttons on thinkpads in hotkey-setup as Whoppie suggested.

ok, but i don't agree
i think this is an annoying method to regulate soun level:

Many time i listen different MP3, or watch a DVD.
But sometime i feel the sound level become too high.
So i just want to decrease it a little.

Actually i have to press one time on the "down" button
and then press 1 or 2 times "up"
In order to decrease the sound at a decent level.

MY point of view is that the step should be exactly the same for up and down keys.

Tenshu

I understand what you mean. This bug report is in fact two bug reports joint together as one. On one hand we have the feature (as Matthew East decribed it) of having different stepsizes for up and down in the software mixer. And on the other hand we have the inappropiate combination of hardware mixer and software mixer volume changing when using the thinkpad volume buttons.

I disagree with Paul Sladens descission to mark bug #42886 as a duplicate of this bug. The problems addressed are different.

I just added my 2 cents to bug #42886, and found this one. I also just discovered the different step sizes described here on my laptop.
My opinion:

On Thinkpads having two mixers (a soundcard mixer and a special thinkpad master mixer daisy-chained to the soundcard, which is different from the soundcard's master volume control, as with my T41p here), I see four scenarios possible:

a) The little special buttons control only the the "special thinkpad mixer". If this special mixer is set to "mute" (e.g. from a Windows session on a dual boot system), one has otherwise no control over this except using sudo, echo and cat, as this Mixer is otherwise only controllable via /proc/acpi/ibm/volume. This is IMHO not elegant on a desktop system. The soundcard's master mixer can still be controlled via the GNOME/KDE panel applet, or by a user-defined hotkey (e.g. CTRL+ALT-"+"/"-", as on a computer with just a plain standard keyboard). This would be my personal favourite.

b) The little buttons control both mixers (the current behaviour). This leads to a chaotic behaviour (in turn leading to this bug report and #42886 ).

c) The little buttons control only the soundcard's master control, leaving the "special thinkpad mixer" unaccessible to a non-privileged user. I would not like this, but as I know of /proc/acpi/ibm/volume, I could live with it.

d) The little buttons control nothing, this is of course a non-option.

Make your choice ;-)

Regards

Martin

I just opened a bug about the fact that pressing the Volume up and down hotkeys on a Dell Inspiron (and everything else) move the volume by different amounts. I had it duped against this. As has been pointed out, this is two different issues that I will try to break up:

The fact that *the hotkeys on thinkpads move the hardware and software mixers by different amounts*
- Bug #42886 - title doesn't mention "thinkpads"
- Bug #42793 - title doesn't mention "thinkpads"

AND *The g-s-d Uneven volume hotkey weighting* issue
- the original reporter reporter named it a "thinkpad" issue but seemed concerned about the uneven volume changing;
- my bug, Bug #45743

I think that these issues need to be separated and the titles of both made clear so that people can find the bug representing their issue. The first issue, with the thinkpads, surely should not be rejected as it is a clear bug.

The second issue has been rejected because it was a policy choice to make down go faster than up. As I stated on Bug #45743:
"I know that my opinion here doesn't count for much, but I will give it anyway. I can see the logic in your reasoning why down should be faster than up but completely disagree that it should be like that. I have used literally hundreds of devices for which the logic would equally apply and *none* of them share this approach as it is counter-intuitive and user-unfriendly.

On this logic, my car stereo (often very important that I can turn it down quickly), my personal audio player, my stereo system, my TV, my clock radio and a plethora of other devices should all reduce volumes faster than they increase them. In all my interaction with media devices, my Ubuntu machine is the only thing that takes this approach."

Hope this makes things clearer so that people don't have to read all the dupe reports (as I did).

Since it won't get fixed, I would be really interested in a "private" patch for changing this behaviour.

Paul, do you know where to change the source code to get the 14 steps behaviour?

i don't believe this "won't get fixed", who had decided that this is NOT a bug?
or i am wrong when i believe that "non programmers" people can give their opinion and take decisions in the developement of Ubuntu?

"non programmers" can give their opinion, but you have also to accept than people have different opinions and that choices have to be made. That's just a minor issue, no big deal, not need go with that tone because other people simply have an another opinion

Something will probably change with the behaviour (visibley, or otherwise) in the next version of Ubuntu.

For Dapper/6.06, we currently have a situation where when pressing the VolumeUp key, the volume increases; and if you press the VolumeDown key, the volume decreases.

For the most-part, that makes this a fairly minor issue, or bug; even if we have to press those keys more than otherwise.

Sebastien, it's a minor issue for you because you see the whole ubuntu dapper drake. And that's fine to me.
I'd like to get my Thinkpad working as good as possible. And so, this is not really minor to me.

It's this bug report and Bug #38272 to get my laptop working flawlessly.

As mentioned before, could you perhaps point me to the needed changes in the source code to get that fixed locally?

sorry sebastian, i didn't want to be rude.
I'm french and i can't say that i'm fluent.
So please apologize me if i used an inapropriate tone.

I understand that people have different opinions, but how could you be sure that in this case you are representing the majority?
I think this debate went too fast and we should make a poll or something this kind to be sure this approach is the right one.

But youre right this is a minor issue when you're considering the whole dapper drake release

no problem, but no need to be so verbose on the issue. We understand your concern but we get hundreds of bug mails a week and we can't spend hours on such details or do a poll for every bug where people disagree. We have to make priority and make decisions quickly on what requires to be worked for dapper or not. We decided that one is not a topic where we should spend time when we still have crashers, strings not translatables, etc...