Many people have told me that the main reason that they do not use Linux is not because of the lack of games or the lack of commercial software, but mostly because they find the buggy at times. This is completely understandable to me and I nod my head and let them know that I am missing out some of my favourite applications under Linux as well and I’ve found my share of bugs which I have reported, but I still provide it as an option to myself to relax and lay back. This is because under Linux, I have faced far less bugs then I have with under Windows, especially Vista. In fact, my copy of Vista was completely unstable nightmare, even with the proper updated drivers for everything. Ever since I’ve gone to Windows 7, I’ve no longer had many issues with Windows… which I find very funny considering the fact that that’s when my issues with Linux started up, though none of them too serious compared to what I had to face in Vista. And today, I’m going to provide you with a solution to a problem that I know has been poorly documented in most official documentation I’ve read: how to adjust the maximum volume settings.
Unlike Ubuntu and the other Linux distros lead you to believe, they often tend to run quite quiet compared to the Windows operating systems on the same computer, and while this is not a bug by any stretch of the imagination, I’m still not sure the exact reason why they have it turned down. Perhaps penguins have sensitive ears or the developers simply do not see a point to having the volume so loud to begin with. However, I can assure you, there are two easy ways to resolve it, depending on how you’d like to use your operating system.
If you’d like the easy route that I can assure you works with 99.9% of the Linux systems out there, open up your terminal and type
alsamixer
which should drop you like something below.
Once alsamixer opens, just use your arrow keys to adjust the volume of each one, and if any are shown with ‘MM‘, simply hit the M button on your keyboard to unmute it. I’ve personally never had this fail on me yet on any Linux distro.
If you’d rather do this the graphical way, it’s not that much different. Open up your mixer settings and hit the Select Controls button, checking off everything, then modifying the sliders with your mouse. If for any reason, it say it is muted, just simply hit the button to unmute it.
While this isn’t a hard thing to find out yourself, this should stop people from asking me how they can turn up the volume or why Ubuntu is so quiet compared to Windows. I’ve had several people the past few days who have emailed me just to ask this question, I just find it rather odd that it’s one of the most popular “problem” faced, at 50,500 results via Google alone.
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