Hi and welcome to LQ.
I keep having issues with volume / media keys - so usually I end up mapping custom shortcuts to commands that do what I need.
It's a bit of a workaround but the advantage is that the resulting solutions are usually portable between different machines.
So if you want to go that direction, step one is to find the command that mutes / unmutes your sound.
On my machine, the following works:
Code:
amixer set Master toggle
If it says something along the lines "amixer: command not found" you'll have to install amixer first, I think it is part of alsa-utils on Ubuntu / Mint.
If then it still does not work you might have to put something else instead of "Master". Just type
and see what output you get. On my machine I get this (the names of each control are given in single quotes):
Code:
$ amixer
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Limits: Playback 0 - 64
Mono: Playback 52 [81%] [-12.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 64
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 52 [81%] [-12.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 52 [81%] [-12.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Speaker',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 64
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 64 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 64 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Bass Speaker',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 64
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 64 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 64 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
Capabilities: pvolume
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 255
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 255 [100%] [0.00dB]
Front Right: Playback 255 [100%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost',0
Capabilities: volume
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 3
Front Left: 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
Front Right: 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958 Default PCM',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 31
Front Left: Capture 0 [0%] [-16.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 0 [0%] [-16.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Auto-Mute Mode',0
Capabilities: enum
Items: 'Disabled' 'Enabled'
Item0: 'Enabled'
Simple mixer control 'Digital',0
Capabilities: cvolume
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 120
Front Left: Capture 60 [50%]
Front Right: Capture 60 [50%]
Simple mixer control 'Internal Mic',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Internal Mic Boost',0
Capabilities: volume
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 3
Front Left: 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
Front Right: 0 [0%] [0.00dB]
If this works for you, too (even after suspend/resume) all you need to do is choose a shortcut that you want to use for mute/unmute and map it to a script that calls this command. The script could look like this:
Code:
#!/bin/bash
amixer set Master toggle
Do not forget to make it executable with
Code:
chmod +x /path/to/script.sh
As far as choosing the shortcut is concerned: if the Fn keys give me trouble I typically resolve to the windows key + the F-key that has the relevant symbol on it. How to assign the shortcut varies between desktop environments, I think in Cinnamon it's somewhere in the "keyboard" menu.