xfce4-mixer and xfce4-volumed removed? [SOLVED]

[carlosfm]

Hi,

A few days ago an update removed xfce4-mixer and xfce4-volumed from my laptop.
So now my volume buttons don't work and I have to open alsamixer-gui to control the volume.
To my surprise, I've found out that these two components were removed from the Mageia repositories. (!?)
So, what is the alternative for us that disable that linux cancer that is pulseaudio because it sounds bad when it works?
I've added the Pulseaudio panel plugin to the XFCE panel but it doesn't work, of course. It only serves to call alsamixer-gui, it shows the volume as muted and it's not. And the volume buttons don't work.
Oh BTW, I know the risks of Cauldron.

Thanks in advance

[doktor5000]

You do not mention which Mageia version you use, so I'm assuming 5. Please have a look at https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_5_Errata#XFCE
edit doktor5000: Re-reading your post, it seems you're running cauldron.
According to out XFCE maintainer xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin should be working.

Not sure why you gripe about pulseaudio. If you want to disable it, you can do that in MCC. But then you should also take care of you audio issues yourself,
which is expected when you run cauldron. You should re-read https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Cauldron#Who ... ldn.27t.3F

Currently under caulron there's a bug in systemd where pulseaudio does not work correctly if you logout and login again. See https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16345

It might help to show all the packages that were installed and removed to get some context information, for that run as root

Code: Select all

journalctl -a --since 2015-07-01 | grep -F '[RPM]'

This will show all packages installed and removed since beginning of july, you can adjust that to limit the search.

[carlosfm]

I have Pulseaudio disabled, as I've mentioned in my post.
For me, Alsa alone has always worked fine.
Pulseaudio, when it works (too many times it doesn't and there is no patience to fiddle with it), sounds horrible.
Well, I'm an audiophile, I like to listen the music without artifacts.
Pulseaudio resamples and kills the sound for me, it sounds really bad and I don't need it, anyway.
I just need this asound.conf in /etc which has always worked well, with volume buttons and volume icon in the XFCE task bar, until a few days ago:

Code: Select all

pcm.!default {
     type hw
     card 0    # built-in device is usually "card0", add-in or USB may be "card1"
     device 0
}


Mageia has removed components from the repositories that are vital for Alsa to work properly and control the volume, at least with the XFCE desktop.

[carlosfm]

It might help to show all the packages that were installed and removed to get some context information, for that run as root

Code: Select all

journalctl -a --since 2015-07-01 | grep -F '[RPM]'

This will show all packages installed and removed since beginning of july, you can adjust that to limit the search.

This command doesn't return anything, it just returns to the prompt...

EDIT: probably because I have the logs in RAM. Doh...

[doktor5000]

Sorry, can't help you further. You should maybe consider using a different mixer, like qasmixer which comes with the package qastools.

[wally]

xfce4-mixer was removed because it's dead/unmaintained in upstream.

From Xfce 4.12 release notes:

Due to gstreamer1.0 having dropped the mixer-interface entirely, and xfce4-mixer and xfce4-volumed relying on this interface with gstreamer0.10, our mixer application and volume daemon cannot be ported to 1.0 and are consequently not maintained anymore.

You can try pnmixer which is the default mixer app for Xfce in Mageia 5.

PNMixer is a simple mixer application designed to run in your system tray. It integrates nicely into desktop environments that don't have a panel that supports applets, and therefore can't run a mixer applet. In particular it's been used quite a lot with fbpanel and tint2, but should run fine in any system tray.

PNMixer is designed to work on systems that use ALSA for sound management. Any other sound driver like OSS or FFADO, or sound server like PulseAudio or Jackd, are currently not supported (patches welcome).

[carlosfm]

I have PNMixer installed.
But how do I add it to the XFCE panel?
I've added the "Pulseaudio panel plugin" (is it this that is called PNMixer?), it's the only thing that shows up when adding new items to the task bar, related to audio.
The problem is, it doesn't work! That's why I've opened this thread.
I've lost functionality.
Audio volume buttons don't work anymore and the volume icon (Pulseaudio panel plugin) shows the volume as muted but it's not. It's about half the volume.
What a mess...
I've tried executing pnmixer from the terminal and it doesn't load anything. Doesn't return to the prompt, either.

[carlosfm]

I've noticed that the volume down and mute buttons were working, volume up was not working.
So, I've edited the xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml file and in the "custom" section I've added:

Code: Select all

<property name="XF86AudioRaiseVolume" type="string" value="amixer set Master 1%+"/>

Why it was missing, I don't know.
It was present in the "Default" section, along with volume down and mute and it didn't work.
Why do I have to add it to the "Custom" section, beats me.
Everything was working fine until a few days ago, when an update removed xfce4-mixer and xfce4-volumed.

The volume icon in the XFCE panel ("Pulseaudio panel plugin") still shows the volume as muted, there is no slider to set the volume and I can only use it to call gnome-alsamixer, which I've configured in the plugin properties.
There seems to be serious problems to control the audio volume in XFCE 4.12, when Pulseaudio is disabled (using only Alsa).
Linux audio keeps going downhill.
Sorry, but I can't accept that I have to use Pulseaudio.

[wally]

Pnmixer is not a panel plugin. You have added xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin to panel and it's not a surprise it doesn't work as it needs pulseaudio which is removed.

Pnmixer should autostart in every session. Check its autostart settings via "Session and Startup" -> "Application Autostart". Check you also have notification area added into your panel or otherwise pnmixer's icon doesn't show up.

[carlosfm]

Wally... you've nailed it!
I've added the notification area to the XFCE panel and sure enough, the volume icon of PNMixer showed up.
I just had to configure it to call gnome-alsamixer instead of pavucontrol and everything is working fine now.
Volume buttons work and the volume slider of PNMixer icon works.

Many thanks!

[isadora]

Please carlosfm, don't forget to mark the topic [SOLVED].
You can do so, by editing the subject/title in the first message in this topic.
Write [SOLVED] to the left of subject/title, thanks ahead.

[carlosfm]

I had already put (solved) in the title of the thread.
Changed to [SOLVED] now.
Thanks again.

[isadora]

Sorry for overseeing that, have a nice day.