[Solved] Firefox support for ALSA audio _input_

[lars_the_bear]

Hi folks

I'm aware that Firefox doesn't want to support direct ALSA audio. But, building with "USE=alsa -pulsaudio..." does result in something that works -- at least for playback.

But I get no audio _input_ which, of course, is essential for Zoom, etc. It's not that I get an error message -- it's just as if the audio input is muted, or its recording from a different source.

I find that 'arecord xxx' works fine, either with the default device or if I set the specific ALSA device. I've gone to alsamixer and turned all the volume sliders up to maximum, but it makes no difference.

Given firefox's general lack of support for ALSA, I'm not entirely surprised that it doesn't work. But has anybody else tried it?

I thought I had identified all the show-stoppers that would prevent me adopting ALSA as my day-to-day platform, but I hadn't thought about this one. If I can't run Zoom, I've have to go back to Fedora :/

I'm willing to try a different browser but (for different reasons) neither Chromium nor Google Chome will install.

BR, Lars.

[RumpletonBongworth]

[lars_the_bear]

[RumpletonBongworth]

I understand. Naturally, there's only so much a distributor can do. In your case, switching to a different browser is a valid choice and probably a sensible one given your intended constraints.

[lars_the_bear]

[RumpletonBongworth]

Using the apulse wrapper is as close to clicking a button as it gets, I think. Certainly not as convenient.

[pjp]

[Ralphred]

[lars_the_bear]

[quote="pjp"]Firefox will work with media-sound/apulse, which uses ALSA underneath: [quote]

Thanks. Can you confirm that it works with input, as well as output? I note other comments that aren't as positive as yours

Also: how does apulse cope when there are multiple PCM inputs and outputs?

While I like to avoid using Google stuff as much as possible, I have to admit that Chrome handled my situation pretty well. Although I have multiple source devices, only one has an input. Zoom used that one, and selected the output that goes with it, even though neither is a default device at the ALSA level.

BR, Lars.

[Ralphred]

[pjp]

[AJM]

[lars_the_bear]

[lars_the_bear]

[Ralphred]

[AJM]

The only config file I can find for anything ALSA related is /etc/asound.conf which simply contains the lines:

[saturnalia0]

firefox-bin works for me. I start it like so:

[Chiitoo]

Looking at the ebuilds, I believe www-client/firefox-bin already uses apulse by default, if USE="alsa -pulseaudio".

On the other hand, www-client/firefox always does so if USE="pulseaudio" and media-sound/apulse is installed; in this case the PulseAudio backend is enabled. With USE="-pulseaudio", the ALSA backend is enabled instead, in which case I imagine some web applications might require running Firefox through apulse manually.
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Kindest of regardses.

[lars_the_bear]

[Chiitoo]

Yeah, would need to have it installed, and the bin version will pull in media-sound/apulse as a dependency itself if the alsa USE-flag is enabled, but pulseaudio is not.

For the non-bin version, it's optional, so if you wanted to run with the ALSA backend, then you'd need to manually install apulse, with pulseaudio flag disabled on Firefox. The other option here is install media-sound/apulse manually before, or at the same time with Firefox, with the pulseaudio USE-flag enabled, which will make Firefox use the PulseAudio backend via apulse instead.

As for apulse itself, as far as I understand, it does not run as a process, but rather only provides libraries, a partial API, and a loader script.

All that said, I don't know that there is any harm in running the apulse script twice, that is, as many examples show 'apulse firefox-bin' where 'firefox-bin' itself will also run 'apulse', but of course what actually is going on depends on the USE-flags...
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Kindest of regardses.

[lars_the_bear]

I built firefox with "USE=alsa -pulseaudio". So I presume that apulse won't work for me, because there's no pulse support in firefox to exercise it. (?)

When built this way, as I said, I get audio output via ALSA, but no input. Weirdly, firefox (with ALSA) does respect .soundrc for selecting an output device. The same settings should set the default input device -- at least 'arecord' says they do. But nothing from firefox.

IIUC, to use apulse I'd need to build firefox with pulse enabled, and not ALSA. Or I'd have to find a binary build, and tell emerge to ignore my USE=-pulseaudio(?)

But that would mean, I think, that I'd only be able to use it with apulse, right?

Right now, I'm sort-of resigned to having to use Chrome or Chromium for Zoom, etc. Even if apulse doesn't require extra processes, it's still a solution to a problem that should not exist.

BR, Lars.

[Chiitoo]

[pjp]

[szatox]

Dunno, I'd say ALSA is a nighmare.
It was fine when there was only 1 audio device and used by default, but the way it's configured still sucks and getting anything non-standard is overly complicated, and I don't recall documentation being super useful either.

Which is why I really got to like jack when I switched, even though I don't do anything related to audio. The virtual patch bay is just a nice feature.
And now pipewire improves on that by allowing multiple audio devices, and wireplumber's policies add some convenience with automatic routing whenever new port is added to the canvas... And integration with easyeffects saves my ears from volume levels changing randomly from one recording to another (using compressor plugin just before playback device)
The software certainly is more complicated, but it also has a better user interface making it easier to configure and use. Just gotta get it to run as a system service instead of a per-user instances competing for hardware (one day, hopefully; when I'm not busy with other things).
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Make Computing Fun Again

[lars_the_bear]