What's pulseaudio for and why it is so popular?

Zarhan · l33t Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 997

Ok, upon reading slashdot I came onto posts like these: http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1363849&cid=29377623 - so, uhm, until now I didn't even really know what Pulseaudio *is*, much less that it's needed. Only "sound daemon" that I have even used has been Arts and haven't needed that either in long time. I just have plain alsa, nothing else.

So just in case I have missed out on something: Is there some benefits for setting up Pulseaudio? Why are all the "distributions" using it? I mean, *every* app I use (Whole of KDE, mplayer, some games including UQM) seems to work just fine with plain Alsa, especially since dmix came enabled by default about 2 years ago. (Before then I had to set up .asoundrc with dmix enabled - not a big deal)

Erdie · Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 7:17 am Post subject:

I think one of the key features of pulseaudio is the network transparency, which really seemed to work compared to arts. Just my opinion.
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energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

for just listening to music on your desktop, pulseaudio is not needed.

there is a lot of noise around pa - because gnome still depends on sounddeamons and everything is better than esd. people are touching themselves - until they realize that pa sucks for gamers (just for example).

For 99% of all users there is no good reason. But hey, just because something is a bad idea does not mean you can not hype it.
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i92guboj · Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:30 pm Post subject:

In my humble opinion:

Going with pulseaudio by default is the silliest thing that major distros have done in the last few years, besides all the hal nonsense. 99% of the users don't need it, and the remaining 1% are *FAR* better with jack. It's amazing how people like to stack layers with no concrete purpose other than putting to a use their 8GB or ram, for no real gain (except in latency, there you will gain a lot :lol:

).

Pulseaudio is *useless* for most users, as war esound, as was arts, and those needing it should be able to setup it by themselves. But you know, humans are the only animals that stumble two times, and even a thousand, on the same damned obstacle.

Mike Hunt · Watchman Joined: 19 Jul 2009 Posts: 5287

I use alsa + sox

To enable it in KDE -> Use external Player -> command = play

It works great.

Zarhan · l33t Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 997

Thanks for comments. I hope that this does not mean that at some point in the future it does really become a requirement to use PA (by inertia of some major Gnome release or from all these distros), since clearly it's not needed.

BrummieJim · l33t Joined: 22 Jul 2005 Posts: 683

Genuine Question Alert! How do Apple do it and why aren't we copying them? They use a Unix based OS, albeit on well characterised hardware, and have absolutely professional low latency results.

From what i've seen on Fedora Pulse Audio is to be avoided.

Yes, I think it's planned as being necessary for Gnome in the future.

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

mikegpitt · Advocate Joined: 22 May 2004 Posts: 3224

I'm happy this thread popped up... I also ran into a slashdot comment about a month ago bashing pulseaudio, and I really had no idea what it was.

I've been using a system driven by alsa for a number of years now (was using arts a while back when I used KDE), and I've never had any sound problems... in fact, things seem better than ever with alsa sound and Linux. I'm not sure why we need a deamon to run audio playback.

dufeu · l33t Joined: 30 Aug 2002 Posts: 924 Location: US-FL-EST

i92guboj · Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 10:22 pm Post subject:

dufeu · l33t Joined: 30 Aug 2002 Posts: 924 Location: US-FL-EST

First of all, thank you for the quick reply. I'm leaving for a road trip tomorrow so I won't be able to try your suggestion(s) until I reach one or another of my intermediate destinations.

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

why using a sound daemon at all?

they were introduced as a hack to enable several apps to play a sound at the same time.

That is not needed anymore for YEARS.

So there is no need for them.

Oh - and networked sound. Which as much as nobody uses.

So 99% of all users don't need a sound daemon. Just alsa with dmix. And dmix is set up by default. You have nothing to do to get it running.

PA&co are solutions in a need of a problem. Solutions which make the whole mess WORSE.
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Cyker · Veteran Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 1746

Ironically I had a genuine need for pulseaudio, trying to forward sound from my soundcardless VNC server to my Windows machine but I never got it to work :lol:

asturm · Developer Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 8938

pulsewhat?

dufeu · l33t Joined: 30 Aug 2002 Posts: 924 Location: US-FL-EST

Zarhan · l33t Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 997

Concerning with "distributions" - is there any of the "major" binary distros that *doesn't* use pulseaudio?

Basically, a friend has asked me to set up a desktop Linux computer for personal use, and I'm pretty sure any of the "usual ones" (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, etc) would be easy enough for her to do the basic maintenance using provided GUI tools (e.g. install automatic security updates). Since I don't want to be stuck on constant tech support duty running emerge -uvDaN world I'm not inclined to install Gentoo there even though I'm happy to run it with my own systems.

However, I would like the system to be as close to Gentoo as possible without any extra crap such as PA, so that when there's some more esoteric problem I can just SSH in and not having to wonder what is this bunch of extra daemons I have never seen before. So are any major binary distros that haven't jumped on the PA bandwagon?

dufeu · l33t Joined: 30 Aug 2002 Posts: 924 Location: US-FL-EST

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

that page does not answer 'why'. It only shows that pulseaudio is an unholy mess needing a shitload of stuff setup and edited.

For what? Sound output?
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Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

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dufeu · l33t Joined: 30 Aug 2002 Posts: 924 Location: US-FL-EST

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

no, a why can not be constructed from context.

The site shows that pulseaudio is a solution in need of a problem. A bad solution.

So alsa can not directly stream sound over network. Who needs that? Really?

And even if one in hundred uses this feature - they can always install that package and crap into all the config files if they really want to. Why punsih the rest?
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Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

I identify as a dirty penismensch.

i92guboj · Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:15 am Post subject:

The fact that most binary distros use it by default does not make it any better. Remember, 500 years ago people used to think that the Earth was flat, which didn't make it true. The only Pulse audio I like is from a band called Pink Floyd.

red-wolf76 · Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:32 am Post subject:

Ho-hum...

The only reason I see for major distros to go churning out their standard fare with sound daemons is pure laziness. And for me (I actually use pulseaudio, because so far, I've never gotten sound to work properly in Gnome without one) it does work. I think I still have one of those cruddy old NForce2 chipsets that actually don't support hardware mixing.

i92guboj · Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:47 am Post subject:

red-wolf76 · Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:20 am Post subject:

Thanks for the pointers. Yeah, I did talk about the window event sounds... Apps usually work alright, regardless which WM I use. But a couple didn't until I installed pulseaudio. For example Gnome-Mplayer had trouble, mplayer by itself did not. :roll:

I'll try without and let you know about mileage. :wink:

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