XMixer(1)
NAME
xmixer - X based volume and mixer control program
SYNOPSIS
xmixer [ -1 ] [ -all ] [ -debug ] [ -device <<device>> ] [
-nopoll ] [ -poll ] [ -rate <<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
read be sure to read your hardware manual.
USAGE
The program has several sliders to control the volume of
your supported sound hardware. In addition, you have a
'loudness', a 'stereo wide' and a 'mute' button 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 his-
torical 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.
-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 <<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 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/XMixer. Per-
sonal resources reside either in ~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xre-
sources 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 invo-
cation 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 command-
line option 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 con-
trol (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 VoxWare include file. (Version
3.5.2 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.
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
faq.
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
/usr/lib/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 but-
ton is controlling, so the button is disabled.
Q: Some buttons don't work. E.g., if I press the mute
button, it immediately pops out again and nothing hap-
pens.
A: Some sounddrivers are known to have bugs. The PAS
driver in Kernel 1.1.8 for example lacks the support
for muting and stereowide. It simply ignores any try
to set those values.
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.