What is ossvol?

ossvol is a simple volume management script for OSS (Open Sound System). This script became necessary due to an obvious deficit in the OSS system. I recently had to switch from ALSA to OSS due to issues with my soundcard. The switch went remarkably smoothly with one little roadbump - I found that my media keys no longer worked (duh, keybindings for amixer wouldn't work with ossmix would they?).

Additionally, OSS doesn't natively support muting! Of all the things to not have! So I threw together a quick script called ossmute to allow muting/restoring volume levels with ossmix. I quickly determined that this wasn't enough - if volume up/down buttons were pressed, it started from volume level 0. If the mute key was subsequently pressed, it would restore the volume to it's original level rather than muting it. This led to a rewrite of the ossmute script to include conditions for increase/decreasing the volume from mute.

How do i use it?

Install the script for starters! The install tarball is available on our SourceForge project page here. Simply extract and run install.sh as root (if installing from source). Distribution specific packages may become available at a further date.

Once you have ossvol installed, it may be run from the command line or bound to multimedia keys (or any other keys for that matter) on your keyboard. Instructions for binding ossvol to multimedia keys in different WM/DEs will soon be available on the FAQ page.

The actual usage of ossvol is very straightforward. Simply run 'ossvol [option] [argument]' where [option] is one of the following and [argument] is the amount by which you wish to raise/lower the volume.

-i, --increase - increase volume by [argument] -d, --decrease - decrease volume by [argument] -t, --toggle - toggle mute on and off (takes no argument) -h, --help - displays usage information

ossvol is free right?

Of course! ossvol is released under the GNU General Public License.