Hi,
A few months ago we discussed my proposal to disable PulseAudio flat volumes, as it results in applications setting system volume to 100%, which at best is loud and annoying, and at worst is bad for your ears if you're using headphones; I've had to train myself to avoid this issue by adjusting my headphones' volume with a hardware slider and always leaving the OS volume at 100%, which is a terrible user experience.
When last discussed, the working group agreed to ask the PulseAudio developers about the issue, without requiring any changes. Since then, the developers agreed on a solution to fix this problem without disabling flat volumes, but the solution has not been implemented yet. I'm concerned it will not be implemented in time for F24. Due to the severity of the issue, I propose we require flat volumes to be temporarily disabled in Fedora 24 and future Fedora releases until the issue has been fixed.
We were planning to vote on this at the working group meeting today, but ran out of time, so working group members should vote here. I am obviously +1.
This issue is tracked here:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1265267
Michael
Michael Catanzaro wrote:
... I propose we require flat volumes to be temporarily disabled in Fedora 24 and future Fedora releases until the issue has been fixed.
We were planning to vote on this at the working group meeting today, but ran out of time, so working group members should vote here. I am obviously +1.
This issue is tracked here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1265267
+1
-- rex
On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 8:38 PM, Rex Dieter rdieter@math.unl.edu wrote:
Michael Catanzaro wrote:
... I propose we require flat volumes to be temporarily disabled in Fedora 24 and future Fedora releases until the issue has been fixed.
We were planning to vote on this at the working group meeting today, but ran out of time, so working group members should vote here. I am obviously +1.
This issue is tracked here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1265267
+1
It's almost like Pulse Audio flat volumes needs to be pinned to e.g. 80% for all apps out of the box to avoid the overvolume problem, until the user opts into an override to permit 100%. For a wayward application being permitted to use 100% volume is just undeniably bad, except maybe by the not so insignificant number of clubbers who've already had their hearing 50% damaged already, and therefore don't recognize the problem. Huh? Volume? Oh, yeah whatever, seems fine to me. Or did you say you wanted to go to lunch?
If there's a way for PA flat volume to be enhanced in this fashion (seems like mainly a UI feature that may not even involve PA itself), that might be a better work around than not implementing flat volumes. It'd be more consistently fail safe anyway than either the current or legacy behaviors.
On Wed, 2016-02-17 at 10:17 -0600, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
Hi,
A few months ago we discussed my proposal to disable PulseAudio flat volumes, as it results in applications setting system volume to 100%, which at best is loud and annoying, and at worst is bad for your ears if you're using headphones; I've had to train myself to avoid this issue by adjusting my headphones' volume with a hardware slider and always leaving the OS volume at 100%, which is a terrible user experience.
When last discussed, the working group agreed to ask the PulseAudio developers about the issue, without requiring any changes. Since then, the developers agreed on a solution to fix this problem without disabling flat volumes, but the solution has not been implemented yet. I'm concerned it will not be implemented in time for F24. Due to the severity of the issue, I propose we require flat volumes to be temporarily disabled in Fedora 24 and future Fedora releases until the issue has been fixed.
We were planning to vote on this at the working group meeting today, but ran out of time, so working group members should vote here. I am obviously +1.
This issue is tracked here:
That sort of whiplash (disabling something 'temporarily' only to bring it back next release) is generally frustrating to all sides. The flat volume haters will rejoice when we turn it off now and upset when we bring it back later. The flat volume proponents will have the opposite reaction. And everybody else will just shake their head and think "they have no idea what they're doing".
Since we've been living with flat volume's warts for so long, I would suggest to wait for the PA fixes.
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 7:34 AM, Matthias Clasen mclasen@redhat.com wrote:
That sort of whiplash (disabling something 'temporarily' only to bring it back next release) is generally frustrating to all sides. The flat volume haters will rejoice when we turn it off now and upset when we bring it back later. The flat volume proponents will have the opposite reaction. And everybody else will just shake their head and think "they have no idea what they're doing".
Since we've been living with flat volume's warts for so long, I would suggest to wait for the PA fixes.
Is it a PA fix that's needed, or is it the applications that need to not default to asking for 100% volume? My understanding is with flat volume, 100% application volume means 100% absolute volume, rather than 100% of "system" volume, i.e. a relative amount.
Maybe some people would volunteer to show up for a volume test day, go through the apps with a default installation and report apps with too high default volume?
No normal app (excluding control center and similiar stuff) should ever set a system-wide default volume. You never know which hardware is attached. Take e.g. in ear speakers which are usually way too loud on anything above 50% of stock computer audio jacks. Take e.g. a user who has a very powerful sound system attached to his computer and uses system volume to limit his sound system's power, …
With flat volumes, PA is just broken and pretty dangerous. And bad user experience. I'd vote for "disable flat volumes ASAP".
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 09:34:29AM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
On Wed, 2016-02-17 at 10:17 -0600, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
Hi,
A few months ago we discussed my proposal to disable PulseAudio flat volumes, as it results in applications setting system volume to 100%, which at best is loud and annoying, and at worst is bad for your ears if you're using headphones; I've had to train myself to avoid this issue by adjusting my headphones' volume with a hardware slider and always leaving the OS volume at 100%, which is a terrible user experience.
When last discussed, the working group agreed to ask the PulseAudio developers about the issue, without requiring any changes. Since then, the developers agreed on a solution to fix this problem without disabling flat volumes, but the solution has not been implemented yet. I'm concerned it will not be implemented in time for F24. Due to the severity of the issue, I propose we require flat volumes to be temporarily disabled in Fedora 24 and future Fedora releases until the issue has been fixed.
We were planning to vote on this at the working group meeting today, but ran out of time, so working group members should vote here. I am obviously +1.
This issue is tracked here:
That sort of whiplash (disabling something 'temporarily' only to bring it back next release) is generally frustrating to all sides. The flat volume haters will rejoice when we turn it off now and upset when we bring it back later. The flat volume proponents will have the opposite reaction. And everybody else will just shake their head and think "they have no idea what they're doing".
Since we've been living with flat volume's warts for so long, I would suggest to wait for the PA fixes.
The central issue, sudden and potentially damagingly loud volume for users, bears more weight for me than being used to flat volumes. Even if we were certain the issue would be fixed for F25, I'd feel better saving users' hearing even in the short run, so I'm +1.
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Chris Murphy -
Christian Stadelmann -
Matthias Clasen -
Michael Catanzaro -
Paul W. Frields -
Rex Dieter