Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Brian]

On Thu 09 May 2019 at 20:31:33 +0200, Jan Claeys wrote:

> On Mon, 2019-05-06 at 13:13 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > Well, I've uprooted pulse and pulled in the rest of alsa. No sound
> > before or after a reboot now. But I just ran alsamixergui, and found
> > the front speakers tunred off.  So I have audio again, about 4x
> > louder than before. So take that Leonart P.  Now get lost, go code
> > for a winderz startup.  And a big thank you to all the alsa
> > developers.
> 
> This was your system having a bad ALSA setting, so most likely you
> could have solved it without touching PulseAudio at all (let alone
> blame it on someone who hasn't been involved with the PulseAudio
> project for almost 10 years).

When you cannot control your own car, one option is to put the blame
it on the manufacturer. You have experienced a Gene Heskett signature
posting; most of us ignore them. He eventually realises his mistakes.

-- 
Brian.

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Jan Claeys]

On Mon, 2019-05-06 at 13:13 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
> Well, I've uprooted pulse and pulled in the rest of alsa. No sound
> before or after a reboot now. But I just ran alsamixergui, and found
> the front speakers tunred off.  So I have audio again, about 4x
> louder than before. So take that Leonart P.  Now get lost, go code
> for a winderz startup.  And a big thank you to all the alsa
> developers.

This was your system having a bad ALSA setting, so most likely you
could have solved it without touching PulseAudio at all (let alone
blame it on someone who hasn't been involved with the PulseAudio
project for almost 10 years).


-- 
Jan Claeys

(please don't CC me when replying to the list)

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 06 May 2019 02:36:23 pm ghe wrote:

> On 5/6/19 12:08 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > On Sunday 05 May 2019 09:04:18 pm Gene Heskett wrote:
> >>   Down
> >> about 20 db from what I'm used to hearing.
>
> A 20 db loss on a beep can be a problem for us of the elderly
> persuasion. Several years ago, an audiologist told me that my ears are
> 40 db down at 4KHz.
>
Thats called a Carhart Notch in the aid industry, and its the one defect 
they can't do a lot for.  Its caused by loud noises, like sitting at a 
shooting bench on my place in the black hills in the 60's and wearing 
out the 1st 3 barrels in an Ackley-06 in a P17 action without benefit of 
earmuffs. With one tree about 4 feet and left of the muzzle, and another 
about 7 feet off to the right.  Back blast off those 2 trees was 
substantial.  And the last time they tested me, 20 years back I was 
rated as at least 140db down at 4 kilohertz.  They turned it up and up 
until they thought they'd burn up the phones, but all I could hear was 
the pink noise in the background. But I'm only down 10-15 db at the 
lower freqs and down about 20 from 8 kilo's to around 18 kilo's. So my 
hearing is usable quite a bit of the time yet without aids.

> > Now, lets see if I can make apache2 run again.

Got that mostly up, now clamav is hogging things.

> IIRC, Jessie worked pretty well. Just sayin'


Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[ghe]

On 5/6/19 12:08 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:

> On Sunday 05 May 2019 09:04:18 pm Gene Heskett wrote:
> 
>>   Down
>> about 20 db from what I'm used to hearing.

A 20 db loss on a beep can be a problem for us of the elderly
persuasion. Several years ago, an audiologist told me that my ears are
40 db down at 4KHz.

> Now, lets see if I can make apache2 run again.

IIRC, Jessie worked pretty well. Just sayin'

-- 
Glenn English

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 05 May 2019 09:04:18 pm Gene Heskett wrote:

> Greetings all;
>
> I have only one, very weak sound, from kmails new mail beep.  Down
> about 20 db from what I'm used to hearing.
>
> Everything else is muted.  And I can't find the speaker-test utility
> in the repo's to even begin to troubleshoot, so whats the next step?
>
> Thanks all;
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett
Well, the next step was to rip out anything even remotely associated with 
pulseaudio, including all of pulse. Then installed just about everything 
alsa, ran the mixer and found the front speakers muted, turned then up 
and viola!, the speaker-test running in the background came up to full 
volume.

A side effect since noticed is that in the last 30 minutes cycling thru 
the playlist at foxnews, has not stuttered even for a millisecond, this 
is the smoothest ff has ever run in 15 years and 5 or 6 other installs.  
So AFAIAC, pulse is a system disabling viri.  Remove it. 

Now, lets see if I can make apache2 run again.


Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 06 May 2019 11:40:42 am Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

> Quoting Gene Heskett (2019-05-06 17:06:34)
>
> > On Monday 06 May 2019 04:05:46 am Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > > In recent times, Pulseaudio "hijacks" direct ALSA access by
> > > registering with ALSA as a virtual audio card, which reroutes
> > > through its pipeline and then sending out audio through the real
> > > audio card.
> > >
> > > You can force avoid Pulseaudio by starting an application like
> > > this from a terminal:
> > >
> > >   pasuspender -- speaker-test
> >
> > which gets me total silence, except for a low level beep from kmail
> > (trinity version r14.0.6) as mail is incoming.  What does that tell
> > us?
>
> Not certain but seems to me an indication that indeed Pulseaudio is
> involved.  One way to doublecheck if that's the case is to ask ALSA
> which audio cards are available, and which of them is card #0.
>
Well, I've uprooted pulse and pulled in the rest of alsa. No sound before 
or after a reboot now. But I just ran alsamixergui, and found the front 
speakers tunred off.  So I have audio again, about 4x louder than 
before. So take that Leonart P.  Now get lost, go code for a winderz 
startup.  And a big thank you to all the alsa developers.
>
>  - Jonas


Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 06 May 2019 11:06:34 am Gene Heskett wrote:

> On Monday 06 May 2019 04:05:46 am Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> [...]
>
> > In recent times, Pulseaudio "hijacks" direct ALSA access by
> > registering with ALSA as a virtual audio card, which reroutes
> > through its pipeline and then sending out audio through the real
> > audio card.
> >
> > You can force avoid Pulseaudio by starting an application like this
> > from a terminal:
> >
> >   pasuspender -- speaker-test
>
> which gets me total silence, except for a low level beep from kmail
> (trinity version r14.0.6) as mail is incoming.  What does that tell
> us?
>
> I'm a dummy about such, so please carry on.
>
> > If that makes audio louder, then you have identified that you
> > generally use Pulseaudio and it is dampening: Look for Pulseaudio
> > tools and turn the (many many many!) knobs in there...
> >
> > Here are some of the Pulseaudio tools you could try:
> >
> >   pulsemixer (text-based)
> >   pamix (text-based)
> >   pavucontrol (graphical)
> >   paman (graphical - not volume control but other settings)
> >   pasystray (puts pavucontrol and paman into system tray)
> >
I installed all opf these that synaptic could find, pavucontrol came up 
and I turned everyting wide open, and haven't heard a thing since.
I think I should remove all of pulse, alsa used to just work. AV97 sound 
on this mobo.

Other suggestions? FF, sent to foxnews or to youtube, is frozen with a 
circular waiting icon in motion forever now when asked to play a video 
at either site.  So I can't even watch the hand waving.
> >
> > If messing with Pulseaudio doesn't work for kmail then try look into
> > KDE settings or try locate other ways to configure Phonon - or
> > perhaps try remove the phonon backend packages you don't want:
> > Modern KDE applications (those linked with Qt5) can use either of
> > the packages phonon4qt5-backend-vlc phonon4qt5-backend-gstreamer
> > phonon4qt5-backend-null, and older KDE applications (those linked
> > with Qt4) can use either of the packages phonon-backend-vlc
> > phonon-backend-gstreamer phonon-backend-null.
> >
> >
> > Good luck :-)
> >
> >  - Jonas
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett


Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting Gene Heskett (2019-05-06 17:06:34)
> On Monday 06 May 2019 04:05:46 am Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> [...]
> >
> > In recent times, Pulseaudio "hijacks" direct ALSA access by
> > registering with ALSA as a virtual audio card, which reroutes through
> > its pipeline and then sending out audio through the real audio card.
> >
> > You can force avoid Pulseaudio by starting an application like this
> > from a terminal:
> >
> >   pasuspender -- speaker-test
> 
> which gets me total silence, except for a low level beep from kmail 
> (trinity version r14.0.6) as mail is incoming.  What does that tell us?

Not certain but seems to me an indication that indeed Pulseaudio is 
involved.  One way to doublecheck if that's the case is to ask ALSA 
which audio cards are available, and which of them is card #0.


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private


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Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 06 May 2019 03:33:06 am Curt wrote:

> On 2019-05-06, Gene Heskett  wrote:
> > Greetings all;
> >
> > I have only one, very weak sound, from kmails new mail beep.  Down
> > about 20 db from what I'm used to hearing.
>
> xset b 100?
>
Worked, but 100% is not that much louder, just enough to notice.

> Does that set the bell/beep volume at a hundred percent?
>
> The man page says
>
>  b
>  ...
>  If only one numerical parameter is given, the bell volume will be set
> to that value, as a percentage of its maximum.
>
> A second numerical value would set the pitch in hertz (unrelated to
> car rentals).
>
> A third would set the duration in milliseconds.
>
> Whether this is the way to skin this cat I don't know, but something
> to try maybe. I see in another of your emails that you've found
> speaker-test.
>
> Here are my bell values from 'xset -q':
>
>  bell percent:  50bell pitch:  400bell duration:  100
>
> Good luck.
>
> > Everything else is muted.  And I can't find the speaker-test utility
> > in the repo's to even begin to troubleshoot, so whats the next step?
> >
> > Thanks all;
> >
> > Cheers, Gene Heskett


Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 06 May 2019 04:05:46 am Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
[...]
>
> In recent times, Pulseaudio "hijacks" direct ALSA access by
> registering with ALSA as a virtual audio card, which reroutes through
> its pipeline and then sending out audio through the real audio card.
>
> You can force avoid Pulseaudio by starting an application like this
> from a terminal:
>
>   pasuspender -- speaker-test

which gets me total silence, except for a low level beep from kmail 
(trinity version r14.0.6) as mail is incoming.  What does that tell us?

I'm a dummy about such, so please carry on.
>
> If that makes audio louder, then you have identified that you
> generally use Pulseaudio and it is dampening: Look for Pulseaudio
> tools and turn the (many many many!) knobs in there...
>
> Here are some of the Pulseaudio tools you could try:
>
>   pulsemixer (text-based)
>   pamix (text-based)
>   pavucontrol (graphical)
>   paman (graphical - not volume control but other settings)
>   pasystray (puts pavucontrol and paman into system tray)
>
>
> If messing with Pulseaudio doesn't work for kmail then try look into
> KDE settings or try locate other ways to configure Phonon - or perhaps
> try remove the phonon backend packages you don't want: Modern KDE
> applications (those linked with Qt5) can use either of the packages
> phonon4qt5-backend-vlc phonon4qt5-backend-gstreamer
> phonon4qt5-backend-null, and older KDE applications (those linked with
> Qt4) can use either of the packages phonon-backend-vlc
> phonon-backend-gstreamer phonon-backend-null.
>
>
> Good luck :-)
>
>  - Jonas


Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Hi Gene,

Quoting Gene Heskett (2019-05-06 08:44:18)
> On Monday 06 May 2019 12:49:03 am David Wright wrote:
> 
> > On Sun 05 May 2019 at 21:04:18 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote:
> > > I have only one, very weak sound, from kmails new mail beep.  Down 
> > > about 20 db from what I'm used to hearing.
> > >
> > > Everything else is muted.  And I can't find the speaker-test 
> > > utility in the repo's to even begin to troubleshoot, so whats the 
> > > next step?
> >
> > $ apt-file find speaker-test
> > alsa-utils: /usr/bin/speaker-test
> > alsa-utils: /usr/share/alsa/speaker-test/sample_map.csv
> > alsa-utils: /usr/share/man/man1/speaker-test.1.gz
> > $
> >
> > Cheers,
> > David.
> 
> Humm, strange.  It is installed, its in my $path and once found, 
> works, without the path in front of the invocation, albeit quietly 
> despite all the "knobs" being turned wide open. Ditto for FF, news 
> stories now have audio.  Not loud enough for old ears, but there.  

Maybe you are turning the knobs of only ALSA, but the audio has been 
turned down _before_ it reaches ALSA - most likely in Pulseaudio but 
maybe even before that...

KDE applications (you mention using kmail) uses the multimedia pipeline 
Phonon.  I am not familiar with using Phonon myself, but I notice that 
it is flexible in how it plugs into the system at the end¹ - linking via 
either VLC or GStreamer (or a dummy going nowhere - but since you 
mention that you do hear _something_ from kmail I guess that one isn't 
in use).

GNOME applications, some simpler GTK applications, and KDE applications 
depending on backend in use (see above) uses the multimedia pipeline 
GStreamer, which is also flexible in how it plugs into the system at the 
end - most commonly either using ALSA directly or going via Pulseaudio.

In recent times, Pulseaudio "hijacks" direct ALSA access by registering 
with ALSA as a virtual audio card, which reroutes through its pipeline 
and then sending out audio through the real audio card.

You can force avoid Pulseaudio by starting an application like this from 
a terminal:

  pasuspender -- speaker-test

If that makes audio louder, then you have identified that you generally 
use Pulseaudio and it is dampening: Look for Pulseaudio tools and turn 
the (many many many!) knobs in there...

Here are some of the Pulseaudio tools you could try:

  pulsemixer (text-based)
  pamix (text-based)
  pavucontrol (graphical)
  paman (graphical - not volume control but other settings)
  pasystray (puts pavucontrol and paman into system tray)


If messing with Pulseaudio doesn't work for kmail then try look into KDE 
settings or try locate other ways to configure Phonon - or perhaps try 
remove the phonon backend packages you don't want: Modern KDE 
applications (those linked with Qt5) can use either of the packages 
phonon4qt5-backend-vlc phonon4qt5-backend-gstreamer 
phonon4qt5-backend-null, and older KDE applications (those linked with 
Qt4) can use either of the packages phonon-backend-vlc 
phonon-backend-gstreamer phonon-backend-null.


Good luck :-)

 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private


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Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Curt]

On 2019-05-06, Gene Heskett  wrote:
> Greetings all;
>
> I have only one, very weak sound, from kmails new mail beep.  Down about 
> 20 db from what I'm used to hearing.

xset b 100?

Does that set the bell/beep volume at a hundred percent?

The man page says

 b
 ...
 If only one numerical parameter is given, the bell volume will be set to that
 value, as a percentage of its maximum.

A second numerical value would set the pitch in hertz (unrelated to car 
rentals).

A third would set the duration in milliseconds.

Whether this is the way to skin this cat I don't know, but something to try 
maybe.
I see in another of your emails that you've found speaker-test.

Here are my bell values from 'xset -q':

 bell percent:  50bell pitch:  400bell duration:  100

Good luck.

> Everything else is muted.  And I can't find the speaker-test utility in 
> the repo's to even begin to troubleshoot, so whats the next step?
>
> Thanks all;
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett


-- 
The boys at first were very polite about my medals and asked me what I had done
to get them. I showed them the papers, which were written in very beautiful
language and full of fratellanza and abnegazione, but which really said, with
the adjectives removed, that I had been given the medals because I was 
an American. - "Another Country"

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 06 May 2019 12:49:03 am David Wright wrote:

> On Sun 05 May 2019 at 21:04:18 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote:
> > I have only one, very weak sound, from kmails new mail beep.  Down
> > about 20 db from what I'm used to hearing.
> >
> > Everything else is muted.  And I can't find the speaker-test utility
> > in the repo's to even begin to troubleshoot, so whats the next step?
>
> $ apt-file find speaker-test
> alsa-utils: /usr/bin/speaker-test
> alsa-utils: /usr/share/alsa/speaker-test/sample_map.csv
> alsa-utils: /usr/share/man/man1/speaker-test.1.gz
> $
>
> Cheers,
> David.

Humm, strange.  It is installed, its in my $path and once found, works, 
without the path in front of the invocation, albeit quietly despite all 
the "knobs" being turned wide open. Ditto for FF, news stories now have 
audio.  Not loud enough for old ears, but there.  When I get some of the 
other stuff working again, I'll have to drag in my scope and see if its 
good at the mobo jacks. Wally's choice of pc speakers is $20, or $250 
for your tv, and the $20 ones need all the electrolytic's replaced about 
annually.  BTDT once since I couldn't buy a better set. These are about 
due again I suppose.

Thank you, David.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: next amd64 stretch problem

[David Wright]

On Sun 05 May 2019 at 21:04:18 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote:
> I have only one, very weak sound, from kmails new mail beep.  Down about 
> 20 db from what I'm used to hearing.
> 
> Everything else is muted.  And I can't find the speaker-test utility in 
> the repo's to even begin to troubleshoot, so whats the next step?

$ apt-file find speaker-test
alsa-utils: /usr/bin/speaker-test
alsa-utils: /usr/share/alsa/speaker-test/sample_map.csv
alsa-utils: /usr/share/man/man1/speaker-test.1.gz
$ 

Cheers,
David.

next amd64 stretch problem

[Gene Heskett]

Greetings all;

I have only one, very weak sound, from kmails new mail beep.  Down about 
20 db from what I'm used to hearing.

Everything else is muted.  And I can't find the speaker-test utility in 
the repo's to even begin to troubleshoot, so whats the next step?

Thanks all;

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page