xmixer

Langue: en

Version: 262843 (debian - 07/07/09)

Section: 1 (Commandes utilisateur)

NAME

xmixer - X based volume and mixer control program

SYNOPSIS

xmixer [ -1 ] [ -all ] [ -debug ] [ -device <device> ] [ -hide-exit ] [ -nopoll ] [ -poll ] [ -rate <mu-sec> ] [ -v ] [ -display <display> ] [ -fn <font> ]

DESCRIPTION

XMixer is used to control your soundcard volume settings. It runs with Linux sound drivers V2.0 and above. This document describes all the features of XMixer. Your soundcard may or may not support everything of it, please be sure to read your hardware manual.

USAGE

The program has several sliders to control the volume of your supported sound hardware. For ProAudioSpectrum16 owners it provides `loudness', `stereo wide' and `mute' buttons above the sliders. Below the sliders are buttons to select the recording source.

Options offered by XMixer are the following:

-display <display>
Show the control window on the given display.
-fn <font>
Use this font rather than the default. The given font should be fixed width and about the same size like the default font. If not, the window will look ugly.
-1
This is the same as -all and is available for historical reasons.
-all
Big mixer mode. Show all sliders supported by the driver. (You may enable each slider separately with X-Resources, this switch overrides it. See below.)
-debug
Enable debugging output. Will show which sliders are enabled and which of them are actually supported by the driver.
-device <device>
Use the given device. Default is /dev/mixer.
-hide-exit
Hides the exit button, making the window smaller. Impossible if the soundcard is a ProAudioSpectrum16. If the exit button is hidden, you can still exit the program if your window manager supports WM_DELETE_WINDOW and provides a button for it in the title bar (fvwm does).
-poll
Poll the mixer device three times a second and update the sliders. If you use this, changes to the settings made by other programms will show up on your mixer window. Though this causes only a minimal system load, it keeps the process in memory, so don't use this if you have a slow system or not much memory.
-nopoll
Don't poll the mixer. Wether -p or -np is the default depends on the *pollMixer X11 resource.
-rate <mu-sec>
If polling is enabled, this will set the delay between each poll in microseconds. Values below 10000 are silly and are rejected.
-v
Print current version and exit.

RESOURCES

XMixer understands a large number of X11 resources which are listed below. These system wide resources usually sit in a file called /etc/X11/app-defaults/XMixer. Personal resources reside either in ~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xresources depending on your installation. To put an XMixer resource into your personal resource file, prefix it with the word xmixer. After editing your personal file, be sure to run xrdb ~/.Xresources or xrdb ~/.Xdefaults to make them work. There is no need for a prefix or an invocation of xrdb if you change the system wide file.

STANDARD RESOURCES

Standard X11 resources with their defaults are shown here. For an explanation of the standard resources please see the X11 dcumentation.

Standard resources are:

*title: XMixer
*geometry: no default!
*iconic: off
*background: gray80
*foreground: black
*font: -b&h-lucida-medium-r-normal-sans-*-120-*-*-p-*-*-*
*reverseVideo: off
*synchronize: off

SPECIAL RESOURCES

Special XMixer resources are:
*brightBorder: gray94
*darkBorder: gray40
*hilightColor: gray72
These settings are responsible for the 3D-look-and-feel of the program. Just play with the values to see what they do.
*mixerDevice: /dev/mixer
Use the given device. Default is /dev/mixer.
*pollMixer: off
Please see description of -poll or -nopoll commandline option above.
*hideExitButton: False
Hides the exit button if true. See -hide-exit commandline parameter above.
mixerMode:
This resouce is no longer supported.
The following resources are used to enable or disable each slider separately:
vol:
Enables or disables master volume control.
bass:
Enables or disables low frequency control.
treble:
Enables or disables high frequency control.
synth:
Enables or disables FM Synthesizer control (e.g. OPL2/OPL3/OPL4 or WaveTable aka /dev/sequencer).
pcm:
Enables or disables digital audio control (aka /dev/dsp and /dev/audio).
speaker:
Enables or disables PC-speaker emulation control.
line:
Enables or disables line input control.
mic:
Enables or disables microphone input control.
cd:
Enables or disables internal cd playback control.
mix:
Enables or disables monitor volume control.
pcm2:
Enables or disables soundblaster emulation control (aka /dev/dsp2).
rec:
Enables or disables recording level control.
igain:
Enables or disables input gain level control.
ogain:
Enables or disables output gain level control.
line1:
Enables or disables line input 1 control.
line2:
Enables or disables line input 2 control.
line3:
Enables or disables line input 3 control.
Each of the above resources enables or disables its slider. The names are
taken from the current Unix Sound System include file. (Version 3.5.4 as of this writing.) Not all of these resources may be supported by your hardware. XMixer checks for each requested slider whether it is really supported. If a slider is not supported, it will be silently disabled. Use the -debug -all switches to check what is supported if in doubt. If none of the above resources are set, they default to on. If at least one resource is present, the other resources default to off.

There are a lot of soundcards out there with similar hardware but different line-input mappings. That means on some soundcards you might find the cdrom audio on `line1' instead of `cd', while another board connects it to `line3'. This happens especially with boards based on CS4231 and similar chips. Future versions of XMixer might include advanced mapping features to make the sliders fit more accurately to the real hardware.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Q:
It quits with 'xmixer: Can't open /dev/mixer: No such file or directory'
A:
You can use this program only if you have a soundcard. Check if the file exists. If not, check the sound-faq on how to create the device entry.
Q:
It quits with 'xmixer: Can't open /dev/mixer: No such device or address'
A:
You probably don't have sound support in the kernel. Check if your sounddriver is installed properly and if it has mixer support. Try cat /dev/sndstat and see if it prints something like 1 mixer(s) installed. If you get an error message instead, please check the sound howto.
Q:
I don't have the default font, so the program always tells me an annoying message that it uses a fixed font, how can i get rid of this?
A:
Call it as 'xmixer -fn fixed' or change the font in the default file. The default file is usually /etc/X11/app-defaults/XMixer.
Q:
Some buttons appear stippled gray and can't be used.
A:
This is not a bug. Your sound driver or your sound hardware simply does not support the feature this button is controlling, so the button is disabled.
Q:
Older versions of XMixer had buttons for mute, enhance and loudness. What happened to them?
A:
These buttons are only supported by the kernel if you have a ProAudioSpectrum16 soundcard. Thus, they appear only if you have such a beast. Older versions of XMixer displayed the buttons regardless whether they were working or not.

BUGS

Some sound drivers are known not to support all possible settings. So if nothing happens if you press a button or move a slider, this may be due to lack of hardware support or due to a driver bug.

SEE ALSO

xplaycd(1)

AUTHOR

Olav Woelfelschneider
   (wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de)

COPYING

Copyright (C) 1994
 Olav Woelfelschneider
 (wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de)

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.