[ale] issues with sound in Ubuntu 10.04

[jrtroberts]

I have been researching this for about an hour now and kind of 
understand it, but am a little wary of hacking files like rc.local 
without understanding what I am doing.

It appears that there is a but with Ubuntu an alsa.  When I start a new 
Xsession or restart my sound is always muted, although the volume 
control pop-up looks like the volume is cranked.

If on my keyboard I hit the mute button and then crank the volume my 
sound works fine.  It is just a pain to have to do this every time.  In 
my research I learned that I can use the amixer commands:

amixer set Master mute
amixer set Master 100%

I was thinking of making a BASH script and have it auto load when my 
session starts to run those commands and see if that works.  Someone in 
the freenode #alsa channel suggested editing the /etc/init.d/rc.local 
file, but I don't really understand what that entails.

If anyone has any insights into this issue, please let me know.  It is 
not a major problem, just an inconvenience to have to set the sound 
every time I boot.


Joshua