alsamixer

Erm, ALSA is the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. Why would we need a mixer for something FreeBSD doesn't have?
 
There already is a working port of alsamixer: audio/alsa-utils

The port of ALSA uses a PCM/CTL plugin for OSS which does not provide all of the features of Linux's ALSA. You cannot expect all software that works with ALSA to just work on FreeBSD for instance. Alsamixer however works fine :)

As far as curses-based mixer interfaces go alsamixer is pretty great. FreeBSD also has a builtin non-interactive tool for this: mixer(8).
 
OK in that case, sorry, I was looking for a console mixer program. As I have mentioned before I am very new to FreeBSD and have lots to learn, I am coming from a Linux background and Solaris 9 background so I may ask questions that a advanced FreeBSD user might not ask !!! :)
nedry
 
alsamixer and tools like it are just visualizations of information already available elsewhere. The built-in mixer(8) command handles volume on FreeBSD. The volume keys on my keyboard control the primary output volume; I used mixer to set all the secondary output levels on my system to 100%, and haven't touched them in over two years. If you're adjusting the volume of different outputs and inputs frequently then a front-end like alsamixer makes sense; otherwise it's just superfluous.

I know all this may go without saying, but I've seen a fair number of screenshots with alsamixer in them just for style, when it didn't seem to serve any purpose. That's just weird to me. :p
 
Yes, no need for alsamixer, you can use mixer(8)!
For example
% mixer vol +7
% mixer vol -7
or
% mixer vol mute
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I use this commands with hotkeys, to adjust volume (ctrl+num+ : vol+ , ctrl+num- : vol - , ctrl+num* : mute).
 
Do you mean mixer(8) can handle it?
"Mute/umute" are not even documented, mute works by dropping volume to zero, unmute doesn't do anything at all...

Am I missing something?
 
No, I mean on at least one of my machines mixer(8) doesn't handle mute at all. I hit the "mute" button on my keyboard and the sound card stops putting out sound. It even mutes BIOS beep codes. The mixer settings don't change at all. I'm sure not all motherboards with integrated audio chips work that way, though.
 
I have read the date, this thread is the first result of the search "alsamixer FreeBSD" so some user might think that there is no alsamixer-like for freebsd (right until 4 days ago but not now 😁) 🎚🎙🎧


EUQuuLpWoAEOo2M.png
 
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Understood. I try to not mix "Linuxisms" with FreeBSD so tend to never search for things like this. I only ever use native FreeBSD tools as far as system level things go. Just my preference.
 
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