Bug#541538: pulseaudio: disable flat volumes
I have the view the same, it should be so easy to resolve this problem in the config file, it must be so simple to implement In addition to the problems you mention, developers of third party applications have to publish this fix and respond to queries of why altering the volume level in their applications also alters the system volume level. For example, using Kodi, it would set the volume level every time a new track was played, resulting in the user having to keep readjusting the system volume level every time. My keyboard has these up/down volume control buttons I use to set the system volume. Every time a track started to play I would have to keep turning the system volume level down because the software had raised it. I should be able to set a maximum volume level for the system and not have it altered by applications. So the question is how easy is it to change this default value and what is stopping it from being implemented. On 01/02/18 01:01, Roland Hieber wrote: I came here because I was just playing [1] on headphones, and Firefox seemed to think that it would be a good idea to set the master volume to 100%. My ears are still ringing. At least now I know what to do. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AFSK_1200_baud.ogg The fix of changing "flat-volumes = yes" to "flat-volumes = no" in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf seems to be fairly easy to implement, considering the fact that this bug is blocking a great number of other bugs, and no one here apparently has to say any word against it in the comments. Is there something else blocking it? - Roland
Bug#541538: pulseaudio: disable flat volumes
control: severity 541538 grave justification: (physically) harms users Hi Roland, > I came here because I was just playing [1] on headphones, and Firefox > seemed to think that it would be a good idea to set the master volume to > 100%. My ears are still ringing. You are not the only one who has faced with such unpleasant experience. > At least now I know what to do. > The fix of changing "flat-volumes = yes" to "flat-volumes = no" in > /etc/pulse/daemon.conf seems to be fairly easy to implement, Yes, the fix for a problem is very easy and it could be found in Google very quickly. Probably, this is the main reason why it is considered as not very important. Personally I added this fix to my installation script very long time ago. This script I use for installation of Debian for my relatives, friends and acquaintances. Also I always warn about this bug new Debian users in XMPP group chats and at forums, where I am registered. >From my point of view this bug is significantly harming to image of Debian amongst users of desktop systems. I have asked users of other GNU/Linux distributions what default value is used in their system and after the check all of them replied that "flat-volumes" is set to "no". Here is the list of tested distributions: Ubuntu (including Kubuntu and other builds) Linux Mint (Linux Mint Debian Edition was not tested though) Arch Linux (including Manjaro Linux) Alt Linux Fedora Especially funny that this option is set to "no" by default even in Fedora, the distro which is used by the main pulseaudio developers as far as I know. > considering > the fact that this bug is blocking a great number of other bugs, and no > one here apparently has to say any word against it in the comments. Is > there something else blocking it? As far as I see the real problem is that maintainers of the package do not consider this problem as bug in pulseaudio but as bug in all third-party applications. Dear pulseaudio maintainers, please change the default value of "flat-volumes" to "no". It is not possible to fix all other applications which cause to problems on user side. Best regards, Boris
Bug#541538: pulseaudio: disable flat volumes
I came here because I was just playing [1] on headphones, and Firefox seemed to think that it would be a good idea to set the master volume to 100%. My ears are still ringing. At least now I know what to do. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AFSK_1200_baud.ogg The fix of changing "flat-volumes = yes" to "flat-volumes = no" in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf seems to be fairly easy to implement, considering the fact that this bug is blocking a great number of other bugs, and no one here apparently has to say any word against it in the comments. Is there something else blocking it? - Roland
Bug#541538: pulseaudio: disable flat volumes
I've recently installed Debian Testing and have been disturbed by flat-volumes being on by default. It's completely unintuitive when raising my VLC volume suddenly raises the volume of other programs on my OS! The whole reason I'm raising a program's volume is because I want it to be louder than the rest. The "flat-volumes = yes" default just causes mysterious audio behaviour that I've never experienced on Ubuntu, Windows or OSX. In fact I thought my VLC was bugged until I went to investigate the issue. In fact, both Ubuntu and Arch[1] already explicitly disable the "flat-volumes" setting because it causes unintuitive and problematic behaviour. Here's just a few of the many reports people made about problems with flat-volumes I've found: [2][3][4]. And you can find many more just by searching "PulseAudio flat volumes" on any internet search engine. "flat volumes" supporters justify their decision with a Microsoft research paper from 2004 [5], however, it seems that even Windows 7 was no longer following the idea presented in this paper [6], and one can say that PulseAudio's implementation(allowing each application to set the master volume higher) doesn't even match the paper's idea(allowing each application to set its own relative volume, and having the system adjust each application's volume levels in the background to match the master volume). Supporters also claim that the flat volumes system is more intuitive or easier for non-experts to understand, but I think just the large volume(no pun intended) of reported issues with this easily disproves that idea. I hope Debian follows suit and finally turns the setting explicitly off by default like Ubuntu and Arch have already (very sanely) done. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio#daemon.conf [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2rjiaa/horrible_decisions_flat_volumes_in_pulseaudio_a/ [3] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1265267 [4] https://features.opensuse.org/310668 [5] http://www.patrickbaudisch.com/publications/2004-Baudisch-CHI04-FlatVolumeControl.pdf [6] http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.audio.pulseaudio.general/17426
