ubuntu-audio-dev team mailing list archive

[Daniel Chen <seven.steps@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 2:30 AM, David Henningsson
<david.henningsson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In our custom alsa-utils mixer script (inherited from Debian), we mute
> microphone inputs by default. I've got folks complaining about this, but
> what do you think? Is it sensible?

It's a historical artifact of working around potential hardware damage
and poor user experience (loud screeching).  In one recent bug report
(against pulse I think, which I don't have handy), Jono Lange (among
many others, as you've noted) expressed a desire to have the mic(s)
set to cap by default, which I think is feasible if we're reasonably
sure that hardware won't "go wonky."  So, while I think it's sensible
historically, we need to do better at having it set properly - the
principle of least surprise, I think.  It can be done at the
alsa-utils level (alsactl init) or at the pulse level (when the first
source-output appears?).

-Dan