Some how I hosed Kmix trying to get my Skype audio input working and it shows nothing. Play back audio is working.
If I close it and invoke it with kdesu kmix I get a totally different (better looking even) Kmix console and I can configure it and add inputs. I needed to add a rear microphone input and could as SU. Nothing like that showed up at all in the regular Kmix setup. As soon as I reboot kmix mutes my SU added microphone input as well.
How to fix? URLs that address Kmix in openSUSE modified KDE 4.X
openSUSE-11.4 was the first openSUSE release that had pulse audio enabled by default in a KDE desktop. As a result it is IMHO not as smooth as perhaps it could be.
I find installing the application ‘pavucontrol’ provides superb capabilities. I was tempted to update the audio troubleshooting guide recommending KDE and LXDE users install pavucontrol (its installed by default in Gnome) but I had others actively and quite strongly (in some forum threads) dispute with me the desirability of installing pavucontrol, so I backed off on that guide update plan. I still might update the guide recommending ‘pavucontrol’ if it turns out my view is the more helpful.
For now I’m a bit ‘taken back’.
On top of that, there is an equalizer for pulse that one can download from Packman packagers: PackMan :: Informationen zum Paket pulseaudio-equalizer (actually easiest / best imho to install from the packman repository). That pulseaudio-equalizer shows its benefit best on PCs with limited speakers (for example on my 5.1 system I don’t see much in terms of benefit). Pulseaudio-equalizer is also not perfectly integrated IMHO. But for old small/limited 2.0 speaker systems I find it pretty neat in how it can improve the sound quality.
that one can download from Packman packagers: