# The &kmix; Handbook

Matt
Johnston

    mattj@flashmail.com

Stefan
Schimanski

    1Stein@gmx.de

Developer
Lauri
Watts

    vampyr@atconnex.net

Reviewer
1999
2000
Matt Johnston & Christian Esken
&FDLNotice;
11/09/2000
1.3.00

&kmix; is an application to allow you to change the volume of your sound card.

KDE
KMix
kdemultimedia
sound
volume
mixer

## Introduction

&kmix; is KDE's soundcard mixer program. Though small, it is full-featured. The program should give controls for each of your soundcards.

&kmix; supports several platforms and sound drivers. Version 1.9 works with:

- All Open Sound System platforms. Explicitly tested are Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and BSDI.

- Solaris based machines.

- IRIX based machines.

- The ALSA soundcard driver.

- HP-UX based machines.

## Working with &kmix;

&kmix; usage is straightforward. Every mixer device that your soundcard provides is represented by a volume slider. Mono devices have a single slider, stereo devices can have either one or two sliders, depending on your choice. Additionaly there is a panning slider at the bottom of the &kmix; window. If you have multiple soundcards, they will each have their own tab.

### Volume sliders

The volume sliders have a context menu, accessible by right clicking on the slider or device icon (at the top). Three entries are possible, but only those applicable are shown.

Muted

  Mute or unmute the device

Split Channels

  Show either one or two sliders. This is only applicable to stereo devices. The right slider controls right side volume, and the left controls left side volume.

Set Record Source

  Set this device as record source. Only applicable to recordable devices. This can also be done by clicking the red button below the slider (if it is available).

### Panning slider

With this slider you can control the volume distribution between left and right speaker. This slider is an overall regulator, which affects all stereo devices (Mono devices are ignored). The middle position is the default. Dragging the slider to the left lowers the volume of the right speaker, dragging it to the right vice versa. Of course, these might be swapped if your speakers aren't positioned correctly.

### Configuration options

If the &kmix; icon is docked into the system tray, you can right click it to choose preferences. These items are:

Dock into panel

  minimize to an icon in the system tray

Only hide window with close button - don't close KMix

  Just minimize &kmix; when closing the window, don't close it.

Show tickmarks

  Show lines to mark positions on the sliders.

Show labels

  Display labels for each of the sound devices. Wether this item is checked or not, by holding the mouse over the icon for each device, you can see this information.

## KControl Settings

### Configuration options

In the Mixer item, under Sound in KControl, you can set various options for &kmix;:

Save current volumes

  Save the current sound settings to load later.

Load volumes

  Load sound settings which were previously saved.

Load volumes on login

  Automatically load the previous settings when you start KDE.

Maximum number of probed mixers

  How many different soundcards &kmix; should look for when starting. Set this low to speed up &kmix;'s startup time.

Maximum number of probed devices per mixer

  How many devices to look for per soundcard. Again, set this low to speed up &kmix;.

## Installation

### How to obtain &kmix;

&kmix; is part of the KDE project http://www.kde.org. &kmix; can be found in the kdemultimedia package on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/, the main ftp site of the KDE project.

### Requirements

Obviously, &kmix; is only of use if you have a soundcard. &kmix; supports several platforms and sound drivers:

- All Open Sound System platforms. Explicitly tested are Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and BSDI.

- Solaris based machines.

- IRIX based machines.

- The ALSA soundcard driver.

- HP-UX based machines.

### Compilation and installation

In order to compile and install &kmix; on your system, type the following in the base directory of the kdemultimedia distribution:

    % ./configure
    % make
    % make install

Since &kmix; uses autoconf and automake you should have not trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the KDE mailing lists.

## Credits and License

&kmix;

Program copyright 2000 Stefan Schimanski 1Stein@gmx.de

Contributors:

- Christian Esken esken@kde.org

- Stefan Schimanski 1Stein@gmx.de

- Paul Kendall paul@orion.co.nz - SGI Port

- Sebestyen Zoltan szoli@digo.inf.elte.hu - FreeBSD Fixes

- Faraut Jean-Louis jlf@essi.fr - Solaris Fixes

- Nick Lopez kimo_sabe@usa.net - ALSA Port

- Helge Deller deller@gmx.de - HP-UX Port

- Lennart Augustsson augustss@cs.chalmers.se - *BSD Fixes

Documentation copyright 2000 Matt Johnston mattj@flashmail.com

Based on documentation by Christian Esken esken@kde.org

&underFDL; &underGPL;