Can't "lock" gnome-volume-control slides
 

Every time I boot up, I have to open the gnome-volume-control to pull up the slides (pcm and the mike) since they get back to their default position, i.e. zeroed. Rather annoying. I wonder if its a matter of permissions?
Anyway, where do I find a file where to dig in for such settings? That way i'll write once and forever instead of having to set the volumes everytime I start gnome!

There's command line tools to do this - although I'm not 100% sure that it also effect GNOME...

alsamixer - will display and set your settings.
alsactrl - can save these settings for the next boot. Look for alsactrl in your startup files, it should already be trying to read a saved "off" state. You just have to replace the saved "off" state with the default settings you want.

found it :)
/etc/asound.state is the file in wich you can store settings with "alsactl store" command.