Hi!
I’m running SUSE 11.3 with gnome (and pulseaudio, which I tried to get rid of, but for me it’s just too much hassle to get audio working w/o pulse).
The Master volume of my USB headset (2nd soundcard) is reset to 0 after each boot. In order to get it properly working, I have to run the YaST sound module and re-set the Master volume (which always is down to 0). Using alsamixer to do the same doesn’t work (alsamixer shows no controls), probably because pulse grabs the device or does something else with it?
Pulseaudio version: 0.9.21-10.1.1.i586
Alsa version: 1.0.23-2.12.i586
Any input on what I can do to make the volume level stick?
hello ginkobonsai. What desktop are you using? I use openSUSE 11.3 & KDE 4.4 and I have had no problems disabling pulse. It is worth a try to see if alsa will work properly like it should.
To disable pulse, use the following terminal command:
su -
password:
setup-pulseaudio --disable
Since you are not removing it, it can be re-enabled if you wish, just use the option --enable.
Thank You,
Hi James,
thanks for your reply 
SUSE 11.3, gnome 2.30.0
It seems gnome is more dependant on pulse than KDE. (Please don’t suggest I switch to KDE 
)
To disable pulse, use the following terminal command:
su -
password:
setup-pulseaudio --disable
Since you are not removing it, it can be re-enabled if you wish, just use the option --enable.
Well, yeah, I know/tried that, but there seem to be a number of hitches left after disabling pulse (iirc the ALSA default device doesn’t work and/or exist anymore). Somewhere in the wiki or the SDB there is a hint to uninstall all pulse packages when using gnome and install esound instead. But when I went as far that: no sound at all…
After playing around a bit I decided that it is just too much hassle to get rid of pulse.
So, I’m now trying to go forward when I can’t go back (to alsa-only) and make pulse do what I want.