Open /etc/xdg/autostart/update-notifier.desktop, find NoDisplay and edit it to false.
...
Icon=update-notifier
Exec=update-notifier
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=
NotShowIn=KDE;
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=60
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=update-notifier
Update-notifier will then show up in the application gnome-session-properties, where it can be disabled. When disabled, a modified version of update-notifier.desktop is written to ~/.config/autostart/.
If you use XBMC as standalone in Ubuntu(choose it in the login screen), volume control is limited to XBMC as a source in pulseaudio. If you login to Gnome/Unity/whatever, and forget to set sound level to 100% before you logout, XBMC sound volume will suffer from this.
Solution:
You can control sound volume in terminal with
pactl set-sink-volume # n%
.
# is a number of a so called sink, which is the same as an output device(analog, HDMI, SPDIF, etc). n% is percentage of volume. This will set sink 0 to 100% volume:
pactl set-sink-volume 0 100%
You need to find out which number your default output device is:
pactl list sinks
Should output something like this:
Sink #0
State: RUNNING
Name: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
Description: Intern lyd Analog Stereo
Driver: module-alsa-card.c
Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Owner Module: 4
Mute: no
Volume: 0: 90% 1: 90%
0: -2,75 dB 1: -2,75 dB
balance 0,00
Base Volume: 100%
0,00 dB
...
Play some music and test(music should mute 1 second):
pactl set-sink-volume 0 0%; sleep 1; pactl set-sink-volume 0 90%
To get XBMC set volume to 100% before startup we create a new command called xbmc-standalone-max-volume. Do this as root:
cp /usr/bin/xbmc-standalone /usr/bin/xbmc-standalone-max-volume
nano /usr/bin/xbmc-standalone-max-volume
In xbmc-standalone-max-volume find pulse start section and add three lines after it:
PULSE_START="$(which start-pulseaudio-x11)"
if [ -n "$PULSE_START" ]; then
$PULSE_START
else
PULSE_SESSION="$(which pulse-session)"
if [ -n "$PULSE_SESSION" ]; then
XBMC="$PULSE_SESSION $XBMC"
fi
fi
# set volume to 100%
PACTL="$(which pactl)"
$PACTL set-sink-volume 0 100%
Now edit XBMC session:
nano /usr/share/xsession/XBMC.desktop
Change Exec and TryExec:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=XBMC
Comment=This session will start XBMC Media Center
Exec=xbmc-standalone-max-volume
TryExec=xbmc-standalone-max-volume
Type=Application
You may also do the same with xbmc -> xbmc-max-volume, but when inside gnome you could simply use your keyboard and Alt-Tab, set volume up, and Alt-Tab back.