It's a bit of a dirty hack, but it works on this box, and I wouldn't
hesitate to use it anywhere it's needed.
If PulseAudio is muting your master volume control when it starts, first
copy /usr/bin/start/pulseaudio-x11 to /usr/local/bin
sudo cp /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11 /usr/local/bin
Edit the local copy (/usr/local/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11) and add a line
similar to the following at the end of the file:
amixer -D hw set Master 92% unmute
Again, it's a hack, but it effectively gives all GNOME users, and
hopefully anyone else on the system who starts a PulseAudio session,
sound at a sensible volume. The same or similar line should be able to
be added to start-pulseaudio-kde in the same way, and it can also be
added to your local shell configuration/profile as well if you start
PulseAudio some other way. It doesn't fix the bug specifically, but it
gives satisfactory results.
~Kyle
