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Old 08-08-2017, 02:20 AM   #1
trollog
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alsamixer in x64 current


Alsamixer quit working. Needed to /etc/rc.d and chmod 755 rc.pulseaudio in order to fix. An omission or a security feature? Either way, it'll get alsamixer straightened out. I figure it was a minor omission. I love my alsamixer..
 
Old 08-08-2017, 05:47 AM   #2
GazL
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Don't make rc.pulseaudio executable. That's there to support a special purpose only (such as servers or embedded systems that don't have users logging in).

In the pulseaudio world you don't use alsamixer. The pulseaudio daemon takes over control of the mixer settings. And yes, it sucks.
 
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Old 08-08-2017, 06:10 AM   #3
trollog
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Well, I suppose that returns us back to my original problem then.. alsamixer worked last week in x64_current and now it doesn't

And yes- pulse/systemd DO suck. But alsamixer has not been removed from _current, so to say "you don't use alsamixer" I think is factually incorrect. Perhaps YOU don't use alsamixer, but I sure like it.

Last edited by trollog; 08-08-2017 at 06:18 AM.
 
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Old 08-08-2017, 07:07 AM   #4
GazL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by trollog View Post
Perhaps YOU don't use alsamixer, but I sure like it.
Actually, I completely disable pulseaudio because I hate it so much, so I do use alsamixer.

The point I was making is this: if one is running pulseaudio then one is not meant to use alsamixer (because the pulseaudio daemon takes over complete management of the mixer controls and any changes one makes with alsamixer may just get changed back without notice at some random point). The pulseaudio design also tends to aggregate the individual volume sliders into a single control (supposedly to provide additional range of adjustment) which also makes changes to them somewhat pointless.

Anyway, I was only trying to help. If you're going to get argumentative about it, you're on your own.
 
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Old 08-08-2017, 04:02 PM   #5
trollog
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>>Anyway, I was only trying to help. If you're going to get argumentative about it, you're on your own.

It'd be helpful if you speak to the issue I brought up, instead of speaking to some other issue which I didn't.

You can make your own thread for that.

I wasn't asking how not to use alsamixer or how to disable or uninstall pulse, so your response on this one is 0% helpful.

The basic issue was this: alsa mixer worked last week in x64_current, and after the most recent update
via slackpkg, alsamixer no longer works. Since no mention is made in the changelogs regarding alsamixer,
and since alsamixer is still included in x64_current, obviously there is a problem somewhere. I suspect it's
upstream on the (slackware) maintainer's end, since it worked fine a few days ago, and ceased to work fine with
the most recent update. I found a quick fix (be it the right way or the wrong way to fix it), but that alsamixer ceased to simply
work "out of the box", as it previously always has, indicates something is amiss.

With that said, any further information regarding how to get alsamixer working again in x86_current as it used to just a few days ago would be helpful here in this thread.



.

Last edited by trollog; 08-08-2017 at 04:03 PM.
 
Old 08-09-2017, 08:11 AM   #6
drgibbon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GazL View Post
In the pulseaudio world you don't use alsamixer. The pulseaudio daemon takes over control of the mixer settings. And yes, it sucks.
Hmm, I run stock 14.2, and I still (successfully) adjust the system volume using alsamixer.
 
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Old 08-09-2017, 10:05 AM   #7
aus9
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well I am not a slacker so here goes.

Code:
alsamixer -c<number>
often c1 as c0 is often the hdmi device.

alsamixer without card number will show pulseaudio if its running.

you can stop PA from running but its independent of alsa-utils and associated files.

1) is your alsa-utils showing up as executed in /etc/rc.d?

2) when you run alsamixer, alsamixer -c1 etc post the error message please.
 
Old 08-09-2017, 09:53 PM   #8
trollog
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I'm trying to recreate it consistently. I was updating my 2 computers, both running x64_current, using slackpkg 2 days ago. While using the laptop, I
opened tor browser and noticed to my surpise that it looks like they fixed a sound issue tor has had. I downloaded, built and use the SBO tor browser package, although I have noticed this same issue with the tor browser you can download from the tor website as well. Anyway, tor usually complains when playing you tube video that it cant find pulse audio. A small pop-up in the tor tab menu area. Surprisingly, this time around, audio played in tor no problem. After closing tor down, and then opening audacious, I tried to open alsamixer and alsamixer bombed with some errror about not being able to connect to the pulse audio daemon. I went to /etc/rc.d and chmodded rc.pulse to 755 and started it, then alsamixer worked, but tor & audacious would fight over connecting to pulse. it was one or the other but both couldn't use it, which is also not normal behavior. After the post above, and reading the head of rc.pulse, I chmodded it back to 644 and rebooted. Now audacious/palemoon/alsamixer work as they always have, and tor is back to complaining about no pulse audio daemon to connect to.

alsamixer crashed (twice) for the first time before I chmodded /etc/rc.pulse, so in the state it was in, and in the state I have used it for years (I just accepted and lived with the tor audio issue, rather than change anything- I have tor installed for learning & novelty more than anything at this point. It's not my go-to browser for anything in particular) alsamixer was having some sort of trouble. Maybe transient, although nothing in the system had changed except for updates via slackpkg. The tor borwser updates itself when you update it through the browser's help menu- not via slackpkg. So even that has not changed.

chmodding /etc/rc.d/rc.pulse got audio and alsamixer working, but added other quirks like not sharing audio between the tor borwser & audacious. I am not going to pursue rc.pulse any further because from reading it's become apparent to me that that is not a lasting fix and creates other problems that I don't want to deal with. It's not really how a full size computer was intended to run pulse anyway.. from the warnings in the file & elsewhere in this thread.

Anyway, I got this "no pulse daemon to connect to" when launching alsamixer on either & both of my computers, where alsamixer has run perfectly for years & years. Tor is involved somehow I suspect, but I havent figured out the exact steps to reproduce the error in alsamixer.

I can get alsamixer to freak out after making other changes that I won't bother to go into because that is not how I have had my system configured,
nor is it how I intend to configure it going forward.

It gets convoluted. It almost sounds like a tor browser post but initially tor & audacious were both doing what they were made to do, and it was AM that was not working as it should.

my first thought was it might be a group membership problem, but these are the groups I belong to: dialout audio video pulse scanner

Those groups should be sufficient.


.
 
Old 08-09-2017, 10:02 PM   #9
aus9
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well I don't use tor and me thinks its been compromised
https://securityintelligence.com/tag/tor/

post one versus post eight should have been reversed. me thinks, even tho we are human.

I can't help you directly as I don't believe there is anything wrong with alsamixer, but with PA

so look for alternatives to audacious/palemoon and test them out if you must use tor.
Personally I think if you try to hide, certain govts spend a lot of resources looking for that activity.

privacy mode for most web browsers is OK unless you really need VPN to bypass geoblocks.
 
Old 08-09-2017, 10:15 PM   #10
trollog
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alsamixer -c1 gives no error

in /etc/rc.d/ I have:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.5K May 27 02:29 rc.alsa
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 999 May 27 02:29 rc.alsa-oss

Nice tips. This issue just got weird because I can't reproduce it consistently.
Let me play with it a bit and see what steps cause alsamixer to error out.
 
Old 08-09-2017, 10:38 PM   #11
trollog
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>>well I don't use tor and me thinks its been compromised

just using tor to become familiar with it.

I use private mode and https and a few of the other things palemoon or FF offer as well.

more general curiosity about tor & how it works, what are the drawbacks, if any,
than harboring any bad intentions. At the moment, sound in tor doesn't work right,
and it's a pain to build from source. There is a list of things that would keep me from using
it as a viable browser, but it's interesting to me to take a look at what it is and how it does
it. Maybe something that'll become important later. Who can say?

you're probably right about posts #1 & #8 Alsa was a fussy beast. Pulse has only made matters
worse. The nature of youtube + ads + data slurp + plugins to combat the same have only complicated matters.


>>I can't help you directly as I don't believe there is anything wrong with alsamixer, but with PA

Probably right there too. my suspicion as well. At least it's been written down somewhat for what it's
worth. Thought I might be able to pin this down more than I have been able to. Alsamixers has been good
to me for a long time. Rare that it ever gave me trouble. The error message it barfed related to pulse.
Poettering's software has been a running [removed]-show for a long time. Wouldn't surprise me.
 
Old 08-09-2017, 11:03 PM   #12
shevegen
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> Rare that it ever gave me trouble. The error message it barfed related to pulse.
> Poettering's software has been a running shit-show for a long time. Wouldn't surprise me.

Yeah. Poettering creates [removed] every day, surrounded by a team of [removed] but the
much more important question is why it infiltrated non-red hat distributions - see
debian. That is much more worrisome to me IMO.

They flip the middle finger to the user.

In regards to pulseaudio, I always had trouble with it and I almost never had trouble
with alsa (alsa also came through red hat though - this company has way too much
vile influence in linux).

I found trying to resolve audio-related problems on Linux to be among the most annoying
thing. Information is spread about everywhere or requires you to disable this or that,
before you can enable this or that, depending on your hardware. I once wanted to write
a ruby script that automatically fixes sound-related problems - the only trouble is that
my knowledge about the sound-related system on Linux in general, be it OSS, Alsa or
pulseaudio, is so limited.

At the least I promised to myself to add to a local homepage with snippets and useful
information - perhaps one day I can then automatically solve any problems by crap
software written by incompetent noobs like Poettering or Kay Sievert. I won't even give
systemd a chance either and I really really hope that slackware can stay true to its
origin rather than go like Archlinux and bulldozer over the users (the real new archlinux
is voidlinux anyway).
 
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Old 08-10-2017, 02:13 PM   #13
Darth Vader
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Long story short, we have here Yet Another Poettering/PulseAudio/SystemD Hate Thread...

I would really like to know the mods opinion about <edited> this thread, so with all respect, I will report it.

Last edited by michaelk; 08-17-2017 at 05:50 PM.
 
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Old 08-17-2017, 03:18 PM   #14
jefro
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Not every mod has the ability to manage each forum. I feel that every one of the mods tries to keep threads professional and we ask that all members keep their technical areas free from anything that is not G rated. This includes words and comments outside of the original questions.

The report button is one way to express yourself directly to the mods.
 
Old 08-17-2017, 05:59 PM   #15
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In addition to what jefro posted while member monitoring and reporting of threads is welcomed it is not necessary to add comments that add fuel to the flames.
 
  


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