[Blueprint sound-mixer] Include a graphical sound mixer by default

[Aere Greenway]

Blueprint changed by Aere Greenway:

Whiteboard changed:
  Option #1: amixer; needed to open a terminal, not suitable for a newbie / lazzy
  Option #2: pavucontrol (depending on libpulse libraries); can put one-click handy icon on panel
  I support pavucontrol, and I think it needs the whole pulse-audio kit, but if that is not an option, you need to find something else /nio
  
  Pavucontrol does require the pulse-audio kit, but I believe it is quite worth it (unless there is a performance hit I don't know of). A mucher better volume manager then any others.
  --Baron
  
  [amjjawad] +1
  and, this must be fixed: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/832939/volumecontrol.ogv
  
  [Srikanth - India]
  In simple words, every user would like to see easy to use VOlume controller as in Windows(or ubuntu)...with Sliders....To be honest, alsa mixer is not so user friendly :(...
  
  [vanyok] I support this initiative. Current sound mixer is too simple
  and lacks of functionality, and alsa mixer is too difficult for newbies
  to use.
  
  [Baron]@Amjjawad, for the default volume applet, you have to have
  pavucontrol install for it to work (as far as I know). As for indicator-
  volume, I don't think that is fixable really. It direcly calls gnome-
  volume-manager. The only thing that could be done is ln -s pavucontrol
  gnome-volume-manager, ect.
  
  [rafaellaguna] If you have the opportunity to see the Mate's mixer, it's
  great. it's a different version of alsa - mixer very simple. We could
  fork it ;)
  
  [Mélodie] Hi, I agree about alsamixer not easy to use for newcomers.
  
  But while trying other mixers in Lubuntu I could not find how to change alsamixer for another mixer, so I I purely removed the volume control plugin from the panel and replaced it with volumeicon-alsa which I configured to be started with the session and first configured it to use alsamixergui:
  it's a very light alternative to alsamixer, and if you still don't find it having a look which is consistent enough, gnome-alsamixer is what I currently use, which I would suggest. However the cons is it is much bigger on the disk space compared to alsamixergui because of the depends: 8687 additional kilobytes are installed. (alsamixergui: 115 kb)
  
  Here are two pics to get the idea:
  http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/Lubuntu/ScreenShots/volume-control_alsamixer-gui.png
  
  http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/Lubuntu/ScreenShots/volume-control_gnome-
  alsamixer.png
  
  alsamixer-gui is what I installed to my child's notebook where I seek
  lightness and ease at same time.
  
  I would not vote for pavu control which I found very difficult to handle
  when I need to switch from loudspeakers to headset and vice versa, I
  always had a hard time having the sound work again in the output. (When
  trying to use it with pulse-audio).
  
  [joern-schoenyan] Volti is really nice and quite light. https://code.google.com/p/volti/
  But: it is GTK, and we should think about the future with Qt. Not easy!
  
  [Mélodie]  Volti has several python packages as depends:
  ****
  Dependencies
      pygtk 2.16.0 or later
      pyalsaaudio 0.6 or later
      dbus-python 0.80.0 or later
      python-xlib 0.15rc1 or later (optional, used for keys events as an alternative to hal)
  
  ****
  
  and volumeicon-alsa has depends which are already in the distro, if I get it well from that list:
  http://packages.ubuntu.com/saucy/volumeicon-alsa
  
  [Baron] I have tried volumeicon-alsa and Volti. Volti doesn't detect my
  other sounds cards, and only works with the default soundcard, so
  useless to me (much like the default applet/mixer). Volumeicon-alsa
  works nice however. Not as nice as indicator-volume, but nice. Still
  need pavucontrol just like indicator-volume though.
  
  [Mélodie] it does not need "specifically" pavucontrol: the setup is done in the preferences to replace the default alsamixer with any mixer, such as "pavucontrol", or "alsamixer-gui", or "gnome-mixer", as per  the pics I already pointed to:
  http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/Lubuntu/ScreenShots/volume-control_alsamixer-gui.png
  
  http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/Lubuntu/ScreenShots/volume-control_gnome-
  alsamixer.png
  
  If pulseaudio is not installed, not to be used, then anything else than
  pavucontrol can be used.
  
  [gilir] Pulseaudio and any depending packages is out of the question.
  Also, any mixer which use a daemon is also out of the question. Adding
  more memory for just a mixer is not acceptable. If you find an alsa-
  based, without any daemon mechanism mixr, I can discuss it.
  
  [amjjawad] So, can we move forward regarding this suggestion? maybe on
  the mailing list or even here?
+ 
+ [Aere] I would like to propose an "option 3", which would also
+ facilitate the goal of moving to QT.  That option is to use the
+ "qasmixer" package, which (in 14.04) uses the QT 4 libraries & toolset.
+ It has the capability of manipulating a huge variety (all?) of the
+ sound-card controls, including the "Synth" control of a Soundblaster
+ Live sound-card (which always has to be raised from its default
+ setting).  I think it is basically a new version of AlsaMixer, done on
+ QT.  It may have the ability to select the default sound-card.  When you
+ use it, select "Show device selection" from its view menu, and (in the
+ right pane) select "hw : Card".  It will then let you control the
+ settings for a particular sound-card (instead of just a single volume
+ slider).

-- 
Include a graphical sound mixer by default
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/lubuntu-brainstorming/+spec/sound-mixer