Re: Audio volume setting: not working - sometimes?

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> There have been several changes to the audio interface over the
> years.  In particular, I would describe the pause, port, gain, and
> balance fields as "legacy compatibility".

If they don't actually work, I'm not sure I'd even use the word
"compatability", since they're not compatible. :-)

> The primary gain control might not be the one currently responsible
> for output volume depending on the various DACs available.

Possibly - but audioctl's play.gain field _does_ work to control the
output volume.  I had thought audioctl's play.gain was just a different
interface to the same thing the play.gain field of struct audio_info
controls, which is why I found it puzzling that audioctl works but the
API I thought was equivalent doesn't.

> If you want to adjust the playback volume of the audio device, I'd
> recommend doing it through the mixer interface instead

I'd been hoping to avoid that, in large part because the mixer
interface _is_ so complicated, making it difficult for the software to
figure out what value needs to be changed to affect the output volume.

> (or simply with mixerctl before the application runs - modifying the
> user's mixer settings Considered Rude).

This is for the same turnkey system I've mentioned on the list in
relation to a handful of previous issues; it is not a general-purpose
program - there are no "user's mixer settings".  There is no mixerctl
in the installed system at present and I'd prefer to avoid adding it.
Furthermore, with mixerctl(1) I run into the same problem I mentioned
in my previous paragraph, that of figuring out what value I need to
change to get the effect I want.

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