Can pulseaudio be selectively enabled?

hfk22 · n00b Joined: 02 Dec 2013 Posts: 42

Is there a way to selectively enable pulseaudio? Basically, Skype requires it unless we use apulse. However, on an AMD64 system, enabling apulse is a bit of a mess since we essentially have to enable the unstable keyword for dozens of packages, so that we have both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. I'd rather not go down that route if there's a way to selectively enable pulseaudio. In other words, I only want to enable pulseaudio when running Skype and not use it at any other point in time. If I have to enable pulseaudio and then reboot, that's acceptable. Mostly, I just don't want to install and uninstall pulseaudio every time I want to use Skype.

eccerr0r · Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 6:29 pm Post subject:

I don't use Skype but use Pulseaudio on my amd64 setup. It seems to work fine, what specific software are you having reservations of using PA?
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mf2 · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 48

I'd suggest that you check out the following article in the wine wiki: http://wiki.winehq.org/WineAndPulseaudio

The basic strategy is to ensure that pulseaudio does not use the soundcard exclusively. That way, skype may use pulseaudio and all the other applications can resort to basic ALSA.

Princess Nell · l33t Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Posts: 927

Alternatively, you can run skype+apulse in a 32-bit chroot jail. There should be enough info in these forums to get you going. The price is some 1GB+ of disk space.