Low sound level with PCLinuxOS - how to fix?
 

Hi all,

I've installed PCLinuxOS 2009.1 on quite a lot of computers for friends and so forth and it's been very well received indeed, I have to say. However,there seems to be one problem that is common to EVERY installation and that is the sound level output is insufficient. This hasn't been a problem until now, but I've just installed it on a PC belonging to someone who does mobile discos and it's clear there simply isn't enough drive from the sound card's output (fine with Windows) to drive his power amplifiers. Same low output from all the other installs, too. Whut gives?

CC.

Try raising (and unmuting) all the levels with alsamixer.

Thanks. Do you know where it is? I can only see the following:-

aRts sound server control
Kmix
Aumix

Using Gnome as a desktop there is on wright part of the taskbar a loudspeaker Icon go to it with mouse pointer wright click on it ,and you will find a option called Open volume control

With KDE you might find the loudspeaker Icon somewhere else

I have a similar problem on all my linux installs even with the mixer levels all at 100% the sound is no where near as loud as when I boot into win XP - in fact, I also am a pro musician and use my laptop on stage and its the only issue I have not been able to resolve to enable me to ditch windows completely. Sorry I cant offer any thing positive to this thread, just though it would be worth letting the OP know that he is not alone - I am using ubuntu for the record........

That icon you refer to just brings up Kmix on this installation and it's already maxed-out.

Wel try as su on the command line to reconfigure the sound card using the command
alsaconf
Stop first all sound devices

THanks for the suggestion, but I'm afraid time isn't on my side. I'll just give the guy a Mepis live CD which we have established DOES provide sufficient audio drive for his purposes; it's the easiest solution.

Run alsamixer from the command line.