alsa mixer seting totally ridiculous!!! just have to vent before i take a break and try again!

[Cheryl Homiak]

You know, I expect to do a lot on my machine; I like to work a lot on my
machine. But spending hours and hours trying to change mixer settings and having
two or three change because you changed one is not my idea of fun.
If it's really expected that many people are going to use alsa, a more
user-friendly way of handling this mixer stuff needs to be developed.
at one point, I thought I almost had my mike working; one false move and I had
feedback. right now my mike isn't working at all again. Not because I was
disorganized and changed a buncyh of things without checking the results; I
didn't! But with all these settings and permutations thereof, it's almost
impossible not to make one thing worse while making something else better.
On the positive side, my sound playinc cds and listening to radio stations, etc.
is better; some of the tone could use some work but it isn't bad. But am i going
to mess that up the next go-around with trying to get the mike to work? Who
knows! I don't mind good honest hard work, but there ought to be an easier way
to do this.
You mess up a setting and it's sort of like the old song about the organist who
played a beautiful chord and then spent the rest of his life looking for it.
Perish the thought!