canonical Ubuntu 17.10 to Allow Users to Amplify the Sound on Laptops Through Media Keys

[vissha]

The new sound settings are now ready for public testing

After getting back from GNOME's GUADEC 2017 developer conference, Canonical's Didier Roche has started a daily blog series about the Unity to GNOME Shell transition for the upcoming Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) release.

One of the key features of Ubuntu's Unity desktop environment was to allow users to raise the volume over the 100% limit using the multimedia keys of their laptops. The setting wasn't available in other popular desktop environments, such as GNOME, to which Canonical wants to transition for Ubuntu 17.10.

Last month, the Ubuntu Desktop team shared their plans to implement the same functionality in their modified GNOME Shell user interface for Ubuntu 17.10, and Didier Roche reports today that the feature is ready for public testing, though it still needs a bit of work until it's ready to land in the stable repository.

"Some devices have very low volume even when pushed at their maximum. One example for this is the x220 when most of videos on YouTube, or listening to music in Rhythmbox doesn’t give great results even at maximum volume," said Didier Roche. "PulseAudio can amplify some of those sound devices."

Here's how to test the new sound amplification on Ubuntu 17.10

If you're running Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) on your personal computer and you're willing to test the new sound amplification implementation, go ahead and add Canonical's official Ubuntu Desktop Team Transitions PPA to your repositories, and do a full update using the commands below.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-desktop/transitions
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade

Once you've installed the PPA and updated your Ubuntu 17.10 operating system, you should be able to raise the volume over the 100% limit using the media keys on your laptop or a physical, dedicated volume button, if available. Please note that you'll have to enable the "Allow louder than 100%" option in the Sound panel in GNOME Control Center. Check out the video below to see it in action!