[SOLVED] LMDE KDE volume control gone after upgrade! aargh!

[quixote]

I've studied the threads. NOWHERE can I find out a way to get it back that works. When I right-click to "add to panel" there is no "Indicator Applet" or "Custom launcher" option. (There's also no "volume control" which seems like a bleeding obvious thing to include!) The only thing I have is a "Notifications" button to add notifications that I neither need nor want. I tried running gnome-volume-control from the terminal, but it says there's no such command, even though gnome-media is installed.

I just want a volume control slider back. I keep sound muted most of the time because I hate all the bells, boops, bleeps, rings, and obnoxious web page ads that blat at me. So I need an easy way to turn it back on when I do want to hear sound.

I recently upgraded with Update 4, but I'm pretty sure it was still there after that. This seems to have happened overnight. I did try to turn off all those annoying billboards that keep popping up all over the place and covering the items I actually need. So I have been madly turning off popups and notifications of various kinds in the hope that something will get that crap to stop. The options to stop them are not at all clear as to what they apply to, so I finally got frustrated and started hitting everything.

Under System Settings > Hardware > Phonon (which seems to be the only place in Settings that's related to volume) there is nothing that enables volume controls of any kind.

I hope someone can help!

[quixote]

Well, based on other forums, I went and installed kmix. It makes an entry in the Menu, and puts a volume control in the "system tray" area when it's run. It seems to do exactly what I need, but is this really the standard procedure? Use an application that's not even installed by default to regain access to a necessary function? Really?

[zerozero]

- lmde doesn't have a kde edition,
- your posts are not very clear if you installed kde onto the standard lmde edition or what else happened,
- if you installed kde onto lmde, it depends what and how you did it, kde-full would eventually bring kmix with it, other variations might not,
- as you see the variables are just so many that is hard to guess.
- glad you got it sorted

[Inkit]

Use an application that's not even installed by default to regain access to a necessary function? Really?

Well I can confirm Zerozero's response. I use KDE on lmde and have kmix installed as standard.

And I think this

Well, based on other forums, I went and installed kmix. It makes an entry in the Menu, and puts a volume control in the "system tray" area when it's run. It seems to do exactly what I need, but is this really the standard procedure? Use an application that's not even installed by default to regain access to a necessary function? Really?

came from this

This seems to have happened overnight. I did try to turn off all those annoying billboards that keep popping up all over the place and covering the items I actually need. So I have been madly turning off popups and notifications of various kinds in the hope that something will get that crap to stop. The options to stop them are not at all clear as to what they apply to, so I finally got frustrated and started hitting everything.

Not Kde's fault.

[quixote]

I think that's right: I installed kde using synaptic after switching to LMDE whenever it was. Last May? Sometime around then. I used the standard version until about two months ago, at which point I loaded kde. (Another gnome-shell refugee here .)

I'm fairly sure I used "kde-desktop" (or "kde-plasma-desktop"?) to pull in the associated files. I'm sure I didn't use kde-full. So Inkit is technically right that it's not kde's fault. But it is somebody's fault at kde that they haven't thought through their package list. Kmix is tiny, provides a (to many of us) essential function, and it should just be included. It needs to be one of the things that can be added to the panel in the default widgets that pop up on a right-click. If for some reason they can't stand the thought of doing that, there should still be a volume control menu item, preferably not buried in the bowels of phonon, and a helpful message saying, "Please install kmix to use this function." (Yeah, I should file that on a kde forum, not here....)

That said, the volume control I got with kmix is an improvement over whatever I had before, probably gnome-volume-control.

In general, I really like kde. It gives me a lot of control over my desktop and it looks nicer than all the alternatives. That's actually not a minor thing, since I have to use the desktop all day, every day. In the past, it's always been stupid stuff like this volume control thing, or the wireless not working (that one was about five years ago), that sent me reluctantly back to gnome. I'd be in a situation where I just didn't have time to find a solution and I'd give up. I think that kind of thing slows down the uptake of kde, which is a shame because it is excellent once everything is running.