Alternative to x11/gnome3 ?

[Polytropon]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2018 23:33:15 +0700, Victor Sudakov wrote:
> Polytropon wrote:
> 
> [dd]
> 
> > > > > 2. The sound control app in Mate is completely unrelated to the real
> > > > > sound system of FreeBSD (as of 11.2 and mate-1.18.0). The volume and
> > > > > input/output controls do nothing. I have to use the good old
> > > > > /usr/sbin/mixer and "sysctl hw.snd.default_unit" to manipulate with
> > > > > sound. Is this my misconfiguration or Mate's fault?
> > > > 
> > > > Is it using the wrong mixer? Can you select a different mixer
> > > > device for the Gnome / Mate mixer control?
> > > 
> > > What's "Mate mixer control" ? The Mate sound app lists all my
> > > soundcards correctly (maybe it just takes them from /dev/sndstat) but
> > > selecting any of the devices and trying to set parameters (set volume
> > > or test speakers) does exactly nothing.
> > 
> > Okay, so you've already checked that more than one mixer
> > can be present in the system (/dev/mixer*), and none can
> > be manipulated.
> 
> Yes, I have 5 mixers: /dev/mixer{0,1,2,3,4}
> 
> /dev/mixer0 is manipulated by the volume control at the top bar.
> I actually had to write a script to figure it out:
> 
> #!/bin/sh
> mv ~/tmp/mix1 ~/tmp/mix0
> for i in 0 1 2 3 4
> do
>         echo mixer$i >> ~/tmp/mix1
>         mixer -f /dev/mixer$i >> ~/tmp/mix1
> done
> diff -u ~/tmp/mix0 ~/tmp/mix1

My assumption is: The first mixer device it finds (usually /dev/mixer0)
will be used. But how to change this?

a) Check if there is a command line switch (like -f to the mixer
   program) to select the mixer which should be manipulated. But
   how to check? With "man <something>", the question arises how
   the mixer control is actually called. From a bit of googling
   I found "mate-mixer" and "mate-volume-control-applet" as
   possible names. There probably won't be a manpage for them,
   because documentation is often considered "not needed" over
   there in GUI Linux land... :-(

Maybe this is a possible starting point:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/mate-1-10-sound-mixer-4175545660/

b) Use FreeBSD's sysctl facility to change the mixer order. With
   the device.hints file, this could be possible (so /dev/mixer1
   assigned to the front connectors becomes /dev/mixer0 which is
   then controlled by the Mate volume control slider).

It's all nice and fine if the defaults work for you. But if you
have a slightly different requirement, it seems you're doomed.

A little sidenote for the script: For "for i in 0 1 2 3 4", you
could use "for i in `seq 0 4`". :-)



> > > > I fully understand that most GUI software is ported from Linux,
> > > > it's not a native BSD development result, so maybe it expects
> > > > some ALSA instead of the standard OSS...
> > > 
> > > A question to you as you said you are a Mate user. Does this sound app
> > > work personally for you? Can you at least set the volume and run the
> > > speaker test from it?
> > 
> > I can only talk about the normal volume control accessed
> > from the top bar: It works. The one slider present changes
> > the master volume. The result can be checked from a terminal
> > with the system's "mixer" command afterwards.
> 
> I have 5 mixers: /dev/mixer{0,1,2,3,4}
> 
> How do you select which mixer would be connected to the volume slider
> in the top bar? In my configuration, moving this slider changes the
> volume on /dev/mixer0 (Rear Analog), and I'd prefer to associate it
> with /dev/mixer1 (Front Analog).

Hve you considered using a different mixer program? I've just
tried ye olden xmixer: it has both "man xmixer" and a way to
select the mixer via "xmixer -m <device>".

There's still something that I just thought of: What if inside
Mate, ALSA is being used? L stands for Linux. Could that be a
reason why there is the narrowminded assumption that "only one
mixer in the system" seems the way the mixer works?



> > Sidenote: I'm not a Mate user, but I have a few Mate users.
> > I'm primarily a WindowMaker user myself. :-)
> 
> Oh, but WindowMaker is not a DE, it's just a WM.

Exactly! :-)



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...