[Bug 39098] Re: thinkpad: volume button weighting

[Martin Emrich]

I just added my 2 cents to bug #42886, and found this one. I also just discovered the different step sizes described here on my laptop. 
My opinion:

On Thinkpads having two mixers (a soundcard mixer and a special thinkpad
master mixer daisy-chained to the soundcard, which is different from the
soundcard's master volume control, as with my T41p here), I see four
scenarios possible:

a) The little special buttons control only the the "special thinkpad
mixer". If this special mixer is set to "mute" (e.g. from a Windows
session on a dual boot system), one has otherwise no control over this
except using sudo, echo and cat, as this Mixer is otherwise only
controllable via /proc/acpi/ibm/volume. This is IMHO not elegant on a
desktop system. The soundcard's master mixer can still be controlled via
the GNOME/KDE panel applet, or by a user-defined hotkey (e.g.
CTRL+ALT-"+"/"-", as on a computer with just a plain standard keyboard).
This would be my personal favourite.

b) The little buttons control both mixers (the current behaviour). This
leads to a chaotic behaviour (in turn leading to this bug report and
#42886 ).

c) The little buttons control only the soundcard's master control,
leaving the "special thinkpad mixer" unaccessible to a non-privileged
user. I would not like this, but as I know of /proc/acpi/ibm/volume, I
could live with it.

d) The little buttons control nothing, this is of course a non-option.

Make your choice ;-)

Regards

Martin

-- 
thinkpad: volume button weighting
https://launchpad.net/bugs/39098