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