PulseAudio in fedora 9

[rpgbilder]

I hope it is not required because I don't need the functionality it offers and it has cosed me nothing but problems

[strikeforce]

Pulse audio is brilliant. My understanding is that any issues you have with pulse-audio you would get the same problems with alsa.

[Demz]

even Ubuntu hardy has Pulse by Default an i think Mandriva? i have no problems with PulseAudio myself

[nightfrost]

In my opinion, pulseaudio is one of the most interesting pieces of applications to arrive lately. I love it. After using it for a little while, it's almost impossible to go back to something else...

[Thetargos]

The implementatio in Werewolf is very flaky (i.e you requiring a sound sever to freaking use another sound server, which actually adds overhead, and hence that nasty latency). I dropped it due to lack of support for CLI applications. I much rather record with arecord, than cause no ends of overhead with Audacity or similar programs (which are nice to edit, but not record, especially] when you can record multiple streams at virtually 0 system load ;) That and other nasty "hacks" (like SDL sound driver being set to ESD instead of allowing SDL to "guess" the system driver [oss, alsa, esd, arts, jack, etc]). Plus in F8, at least, is a nightmare to manage multiple sound devices, unless you have ESD enabled (with the consequences it has, and lack of CLI support).

[YeOK]

I have found it quite useful, I hope it continues in Fedora 9.

[scottro]

They are, judging from a recent Rawhide upgrade, I did, planning to continue using it. As for Ubuntu, it's in, according to some review I came across, still in the alpha stage.

I'm not a fan of it personally--I'm in console a good deal of the time and prior to various "improvements" of November of last year, sound just worked.

[szandor]

Pulse audio is brilliant. My understanding is that any issues you have with pulse-audio you would get the same problems with alsa.

when i first had to use pulseaudio, my thoughts were less than pleasant. i initially thought it was a useless waste of time spent on another sound server. i was just getting use to working with alsa. however, having to figure out how all the sinks, sources, modules, conf files, pcm/ctl plugins, device names, applications, hal, etc, not to mention the alsa api, work together, i've learned more about my sound setup in the last 2 weeks than i ever did with alsa/esd. not to mention, this was the easiest it's ever been getting sound working on my laptop. for everything. even the internal usb webcam mic works. i had to put 4 lines of text in a config file to get sound playing in wine/world of warcraft. simplicity! granted, there have been some tough points with pulse, but, nothing a few minutes of reading couldn't sort out. also, i always inadvertently run across other information that i needed or was able use later.

[CrackedLCD]

Pulse audio is brilliant. My understanding is that any issues you have with pulse-audio you would get the same problems with alsa.

Um, I never had the issue of non-root users having no sound with alsa OR alsa trying to use the wrong sound card. I'll admit it's not THAT difficult to get PA up and running w/o too many problems (though I could never get it to work with snes9x), but for the unexperienced/uninitiated, it could be a real pain. I don't mind it being included in future Fedora releases, but I don't think it should be the default sound system...yet. It should be left as an option during installation IMO. I'll agree with the others that it's kind of innovative, but then again, I can live without it just fine.

That's my two cents at least.

[strikeforce]

Um, I never had the issue of non-root users having no sound with alsa OR alsa trying to use the wrong sound card. I'll admit it's not THAT difficult to get PA up and running w/o too many problems (though I could never get it to work with snes9x), but for the unexperienced/uninitiated, it could be a real pain. I don't mind it being included in future Fedora releases, but I don't think it should be the default sound system...yet. It should be left as an option during installation IMO. I'll agree with the others that it's kind of innovative, but then again, I can live without it just fine.

That's my two cents at least.

You must not have had used alsa when it was added into Fedora. I remember all the issues I had with alsa in the early days and how much of an improvement it was. For me PA was just a blessing with how easy it was to set up straight out of the box the only issue I had was simply turning on some programs.

[Thetargos]

I started using ALSA since Red Hat 9, when it had to be compiled and what not. I never actually found "difficult" to use ALSA, but rather "laborious" as there were many details to pay attention to, the end result was equally astonishing (for me at least). PA has been awesome, but until the little quirks are addressed (such as device names in CLI apps) or better describe how to use them... It is of little use to me.

[rpgbilder]

Um, I never had the issue of non-root users having no sound with alsa OR alsa trying to use the wrong sound card. I'll admit it's not THAT difficult to get PA up and running w/o too many problems (though I could never get it to work with snes9x), but for the unexperienced/uninitiated, it could be a real pain. I don't mind it being included in future Fedora releases, but I don't think it should be the default sound system...yet. It should be left as an option during installation IMO. I'll agree with the others that it's kind of innovative, but then again, I can live without it just fine.

That's my two cents at least.

I agree with you I think you should be able to uninstall pulse audio without having to uninstall stuff like SDL

[sideways]

PulseAudio is a stupidly named, unuseful, irritating addition to Fedora.

This is what happens when you have teenagers/early 20-year-olds involved in the development process.

[strikeforce]

PulseAudio is a stupidly named, unuseful, irritating addition to Fedora.

This is what happens when you have teenagers/early 20-year-olds involved in the development process.

The value of open source is that you can change it care to give it a go? If not be sure to file the bug reports.

teenagers/early 20-year-olds are not the developers btw sadly you are misinformed or trolling.

[johannlo]

if it adds noticeable latency thou then its bad.

In theory linux lends itself to become an awesome audio production machine with the right software and build. However the programs just aren't there (pro tools, reason, logic, cubase, fruity loops, ableton, u name it) and if pulseaudio adds noticeable latency then that makes it even less likely we'll ever get a linux audio production ecosystem that can rival osx or windows.

THough having said that I haven't noticed any real difference apart from having to spend a few time squashing a few bugs (u get used to that as a fedora user, for better or worse)

making beats is the other non gaming reason I keep windows and osx systems around :) that and serato scratch live doesn't run on linux....

[szandor]

PulseAudio is a stupidly named, unuseful, irritating addition to Fedora.

This is what happens when you have teenagers/early 20-year-olds involved in the development process.

haha. methinks you've watched hackers, sneakers, and antitrust one too many times.

[sideways]

The value of open source is that you can change it care to give it a go? If not be sure to file the bug reports.

teenagers/early 20-year-olds are not the developers btw sadly you are misinformed or trolling.

Well Lennart Poettering claims to be 27 but he is clearly about 12
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Interviews/LennartPoettering
;)

I can see I'm in the minority, so don't worry, you'll get your audio "ear-candy"

Personally I'd be happy if audio just worked - you know, boot up, play an mp3, get sound.
Without having to fuss around in clunky gui config tools. I really don't want a "Compiz for sound", at least not right now. And anyway, it seems to me that compiz is less buggy than pusleaudio, so why isn't compiz-fusion installed by default? At least graphical effects are somewhat useful, especially transparency and scaling (And those nifty fire effects of course).

I think it will become annoying having sound volume set depending on where I last clicked my mouse. But hey, I may be wrong, look out for a future post where I claim to have supported this great idea all along!

[szandor]

Well Lennart Poettering claims to be 27 but he is clearly about 12
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Interviews/LennartPoettering
;)

I can see I'm in the minority, so don't worry, you'll get your audio "ear-candy"

Personally I'd be happy if audio just worked - you know, boot up, play an mp3, get sound.
Without having to fuss around in clunky gui config tools. I really don't want a "Compiz for sound", at least not right now. And anyway, it seems to me that compiz is less buggy than pusleaudio, so why isn't compiz-fusion installed by default? At least graphical effects are somewhat useful, especially transparency and scaling (And those nifty fire effects of course).

I think it will become annoying having sound volume set depending on where I last clicked my mouse. But hey, I may be wrong, look out for a future post where I claim to have supported this great idea all along!

there's a difference between running a compositor with intel 945 graphics than running a sound server with intel hda specifications. however, if you are referring to why compiz-fusion is not included in all distros then i would imagine it's because, 1. it is new (excluding beryl or the distro) 2. it will be soon if it's not already. for starters, compiz and beryl came installed by default on sabayon and/or opensuse. so compiz-fusion, which is just a fusion between beryl and compiz extras...hmm, maybe that's where they got the name..., would seem just as likely to be installed by default. or did i miss the point about why isn't compiz installed by default??

[moonshinerat]

Couldn't ever get alsa to work at all on my desktop (Intel m'board 82801G) and have had to survive without sound since Fedora 7. Everyone complained about the Vista file system not working properly and that MS couldn't get the basics right; what about sound on Linux? On my laptop (VIA chip) sound worked pretty good but I obviously didn't use anything advanced sound-wise because I found Pulseaudio an unnecessary complication.

It is also a pain that removing pulseaudio and alsa with the package manager takes half your kernel with it. There should be a better way to make this software an option.

[rweed]

Pulse audio is brilliant. My understanding is that any issues you have with pulse-audio you would get the same problems with alsa.
Wrong. With pulseaudio, VLC audio is out of sync by 5-6 seconds for me. Kill pulseaudio process, it's perfect.

[Thetargos]

Wrong. With pulseaudio, VLC audio is out of sync by 5-6 seconds for me. Kill pulseaudio process, it's perfect.
Be thankful you even have audio in VLC (with Pulse enabled) I do not.

[szandor]

Wrong. With pulseaudio, VLC audio is out of sync by 5-6 seconds for me. Kill pulseaudio process, it's perfect.

wrong. with pulseaudio, not only is vlc audio in sync for all my video files but pulseaudio even adds 'vlc' in the pulse audio volume controller with all the other apps it's controlling sound for. next you'll be blaming pulseaudio for packet loss.

[rweed]

wrong. with pulseaudio, not only is vlc audio in sync for all my video files but pulseaudio even adds 'vlc' in the pulse audio volume controller with all the other apps it's controlling sound for. next you'll be blaming pulseaudio for packet loss.
When I'm watching shoutcast tv in vlc, the audio is off by 5-6 seconds. If I exit vlc, kill pulseaudio process, and restart vlc, the audio sync is perfect in shoutcast tv. This is reproducible 100% of the time.

What, do you just cover your eyes and ears every time someone says "latency" in a discussion about pulseaudio?

[johannlo]

I've been with linux, specifically Fedora since FC4 (not anywhere as long as many of you veterans out there but long enough!) and this current debate about pulseaudio/networkmanager/<shiny new feature X> seems to be another case of deja vu

Whenever Fedora introduces a new, cutting edge feature / component, it goes something like this

- 50% of people have no issues
- 20% of people have minor issues that they work out after a bit of googling thanks to the brave souls who have gone before them
- 20% of people have major issues that they manage to reduce to minor issues after a lot of googling
- 10% of people are stuck with what is possibly a 'deal breaker', and have to turn the feature off / do some radical workaround and cop a reduction in functionality / give up completely.

Usually IIRC such issues are resolved relatively quickly (i.e. next fedora release i.e. in 6 months!!). Major optical drive issues in FC6, gone in FC7. Dual screen not working properly in FC5 (only able to recognise screen as one big screen so when I maximise it expands across both windows), fine in FC6.

Fedora is not beta software but it is bleeding edge, and your mileage WILL vary

[szandor]

When I'm watching shoutcast tv in vlc, the audio is off by 5-6 seconds. If I exit vlc, kill pulseaudio process, and restart vlc, the audio sync is perfect in shoutcast tv. This is reproducible 100% of the time.

What, do you just cover your eyes and ears every time someone says "latency" in a discussion about pulseaudio?

shoutcast? ***************. that's it? you failed to mention that you're only having one problem with one steaming application. you just made it sound like pulseaudio is the culprit behind all your sound latency. who knows? it may very well be the case that you don't know how to work with sound in linux and you're having sound latency with everything pulse is playing. but, yes, by all means, we should scrap pulseaudio, the whole application, mind you, not the plugin. just because you can't stream american idol correctly. are you sure you don't mean the alsa plugin for the pulseaudio application is what you're having a problem with? do you have the same issues with local files? have you even tried using oss? or esd? do you you even know what your asoundrc is for? oh wait, you're the one closing their eyes and blaming the complete application for your one application, yet, i've managed to get every single one of mine to work. sure if i tried to use shoutcast, i may possibly be able to duplicate your issue. however, i'd just find a workaround, like, gee, i don't know, since i've only given this 5 seconds of thought but how about finding something other than vlc? or at the least, a different audio output module in vlc. i had to find a workaround for wine/alsa/pulse because they wouldn't work together with the alsa plugin. however, even that was temporary. i had to patch wine for call of duty 4 and at the same time i updated the alsa plugin and the sound worked in wine on it's on. that's the miracle of updates and patience. as far as i can recall, it's been like this since i started with redhat 7. and now we're at fedora core. 9 almost!. things will be like this for a long time. get used to it.

what, do you just scrap a kernel because you can't load a module? don't worry, if you're having such an issue getting a handle on fedora/linux and it's not windowy, pointy clicky, do everything for you enough, i'm sure the windows community will take you back. lmao.

[johannlo]

Mate calm down, no need to get abusive

[leigh123linux]

Mate calm down, no need to get abusive

Can you highlight the bit you found abusive !!

[johannlo]

maybe abusive is a bit strong, but just the general tone I felt was uncalled for. The last thing we should be doing on this forum is going around calling people idiots (which is basically the tone of the above msg)

[leigh123linux]

maybe abusive is a bit strong, but just the general tone I felt was uncalled for. The last thing we should be doing on this forum is going around calling people idiots (which is basically the tone of the above msg)

Neither has breached forum rules yet IMO .




What, do you just cover your eyes and ears every time someone says "latency" in a discussion about pulseaudio?


szandor may be a bit sarcastic in his last post but rweed's previous post prompted it IMO

[strikeforce]

As I made a post from the developer upstream he has seen that there is very little different from pulse audio and alsa. The benefits far exceed the risk of breakage hence it was included.

I strongly support the packager since yes I've had issues but overall when I got pulse audio working it is so brilliant.

[Jongi]

I've recently installed F8 x86_64. Can I assume that this uses PulseAudio? If so I have noticed no difference from F7. So I take it is working as it should for me?

If this is the case I will vote for its inclusion in F9.

Can someone point me to a resource that explains PulseAudio in the Fedora contect and what changes it has made in comparison with previous versions?

[scottro]

Ah it would be nice if that were in official Fedora docs, wouldn't it?
@Leigh123 there's abusive as in this merits a note to moderators and there's rude. On the other hand, judging from the post in question, the author doesn't seem to be a native English speaker so perhaps the rudeness was unintentional.

One thing I've liked about these forums since I've joined is the general level of respect among members. (Of course, there's also the possibility that the two involved are friends.)
Back to the subject at hand, from what I've seen, playing around with the live Alphas and some test upgrades, pulse-audio no longer breaks sound if one sticks with the defaults. One does have to give the root password the first time a normal user does anything with sound or video, but as Fedora isn't really a workplace distro, that's not a major issue.

Ubuntu seems to have taken a better approach actually. Rather than telling everyone how good it was, they said, we're using it in Alpha, there are some bugs, here they are. However, it worked out of the box. (However, with Ubuntu, I just throw it on out of curiosity once in awhile, taking defaults. With Fedora, which is my main work environment, I greatly customize it.)

More of a problem, at least to me, is the tying in of sound to ConsoleKit and avahi-daemon. The developer was kind enough to explain his decision in the bug report I was following, but I reserve the right to disagree. :)

At this point, it seems that it will probably work for the majority of people without them having to google for the answer, so sure, go ahead and put it in.

[leigh123linux]

I checked szandor's IP and the result was the United States ( I have removed the remark )

[scottro]

Probably better safe than sorry. I tended to agree with your viewpoint, that it didn't merit moderator intervention, but at any rate---back to pulse audio.

I do think, at this point (judging from a spanking new install of Rawhide) that if you step outside the box, so to speak, it might cause issues. That is--leaving it at its default, I could have sound in console. However, when I start fluxbox, open an Xterm and try to play something, I couldn't.

As I said above, though it seems to work a bit better with Ubuntu, it's not a fair comparision because all I ever do with Ubuntu is use the defaults. I am also getting that issue I mentioned, where the first few seconds of a song will be lost--then, if I ctl+C out of it and play it again, it's fine. However, looking through bugzilla, I see nothing at all similar, so I'm guessing that's just some weirdness on my machine, or perhaps on the CD I burned. (Hrrm, should this have gone under the alpha thread?)

However, that's not a pulse audio issue, per se, because when I removed the alsa-plugin-pulseadio, I still have the same issue.

I think (I'd be interested in everyone's opinion here) that the big thing in 8 is that it made sound difficult to attain for everyone, whether you stuck with defaults or not. This doesn't seem to be the case in Sulpher, at least from what I see--you do, as I mentioned, have to type in the root password once. If Fedora were an enterprise type system, going on 100 desktops of users who have sound, it would be a pain, but with the short support cycle and everything else, I don't really consider it an enterprise Linux desktop.

Apparently, the work done on it by the Fedora people have aided the Ubuntu people in making their distribution a bit better for their users. Personally, I consider this a good thing for OpenSource, as Ubuntu is probably the most likely of the various distributions to make any serious inroads on the desktop, but that's another thread.

[Thetargos]

Scottro, you mention you did get sound in the console (I assume you are referring to a gnome-terminal), which, when you switched to Fluxbox you did not. One very simple thing to do is to check the inherited environment variables in each environment (just type `set > varslist-gnome.txt`, for instance in GNOME to see which variables are available in GNOME and the same in Fluxbox, then compare). What I'd be most interested on in regards to PulseAudio in Sulphur is beyond the "console sound support" how does it actually handle multiple sound cards and the console, where you can with just ALSA call each device by their plug (hw0:whatever; hw1:somethingelse) how could I, for example, work with PulseAudio at the console with say, arecord? My main grief in Werewolf was/is that in its default configuration, it is impossible to guess what device to use for console commands. If you listed all supported devices, you'd only see alsa devices, which are (for some strange reason) not available when actually trying to use them! A nightmare.

[scottro]

Thtargos, I'm sorry, I obviously wasn't clear enough.
My usual installation is to install, immediately change to runlevel 3, install fluxbox and not boot into Gnome. In one or two test installs of Rawhide, however, I would startx into Gnome to see what happened with things, including sound this time.

So, if I tried to play something with say, Rhythmbox in Gnome, the first time I got a message that I had to provide root's password. After doing that, things played (though with that issue I've mentioned, losing a few seconds.)

After installing mplayer, I then tried to play music in console--that is, in run level three, no X running. That also worked--there was some warning about pulse, though.

Lastly, I booted into fluxbox. I then opened an xterm and went to play music. At this point, I got some message about being unable to connect to the pulse daemon and though mplayer was running, I got no sound. At that point, I yum removed alsa-plugins-pulseaudio, and then I got my sound.

Right now, I'm working in my latest and greatest install, and haven't even booted Gnome on it. However, I should try that suggestion, of seeing what variables are there in Gnome that aren't in fluxbox. (However, once I boot Gnome once, it creates about 33 directories that I don't want.) :)

My sound demands are pretty minimal, especially on this laptop--it has the usual so-so laptop sound. So I can't really put it through the tests you mention, multiple sound cards, etc.

My whole issue wtih the sound thing is that since November of last year, it no longer worked out of the box. This had more to do with that ConsoleKit decision. A real investigation into getting sound working perfectly for me will have to wait until I"m really bored.

However, that whole difference between Gnome and flux environment variables might be useful for several things and I will have to look into that.

I do thank you very much for that suggestion--I should have thought of that myself.

[Thetargos]

What you describe seems to be a problem with Console Kit not changing accordingly the perms of the /dev/*{dsp,mixer,et al}* devices, and instead PAM takes control so you as a regular user can at least access them with elevated privileges, this should be considered a BUG (a serious security bug, IMO).

By the way, sound with pulse in init 3 is sweet... If it is reliable with multicard configs.

[scottro]

I fixed it the way I have since the problems began in November, by editing /etc/security/console.perms.d/50-default-perms. I mentioned this fix on the bug report that was closed.

Sigh just another reason I feel sound shouldn't be tied to ConsoleKit.

[Thetargos]

There was an interesting discussion about sound in Linux at the Phoronix forums regarding the need for a common interface. Sound in Linux is one of the few things that are a nightmare still to deal with, both from a user's perspective and coder.

[Jongi]

Sorry to ask again, but is PulseAudio run by default when I installed F8 x86_64?

[strikeforce]

Yep I believe so.

[scottro]

Judging from installing via live CDs, yes, it is included by default.

[szandor]

I checked szandor's IP and the result was the United States ( I have removed the remark )

oh my. sorry about all the fuss. it was not my intention to call anyone an idiot. after reading it, though, it does sound rather blunt. it just frustrated me that a giant problem was blamed on linux (pulseaudio), yet, it turned out to be a specific individual problem which i thought should have been stated initially. when my friends try and use my laptop, even though everything works, they claim there is a problem (nothing specific, just that there's a problem) because they can't do something/get somewhere. sometimes i want to slap them upside the head with an o'reilly book. perhaps linux in a nutshell... anyway, my sincerest apologies to the offended. and in regards to the edited remark to my post, i blame it on watching too much southpark. :D

[scottro]

Well, how can anyone stay annoyed at a South Park fan. :)

A handsome apology in my humble opinion, though I wasn't the one who made the post that you answered.

[RedFedora]

Pulse Audio was why I dropped Fedora 8 after a few days -- was never able to get it working. I hope it's either been polished or not included in F9.
However, if it works out of the box, I'll happily use it.

[scottro]

Again, my experience is with an alpha CD, but if you are running in Gnome, it seems that it will ask for root password after login (which you can save--I don't remember if it is saving it for everything or just pulseaudio) and after that it should work.

If you use another window manager (don't know about KDE, I mean a window manager vs. desktop environment--I use fluxbox) or console, you might run into issues. I didn't thoroughly investigate it, just checked to see if all those ways would work out of the box.

Ubuntu's alpha seems to have solved these problems. AFAICT, it just doesn't use pulse-audio save when you're in Gnome, but I wouldn't swear to that. I do know that it works for me in Gnome, fluxbox and console--however, in flux and console, volume controls don't work.

Hope this helps, but remember, all my experience is only with the alpha.

[rweed]

shoutcast? ***************. that's it? you failed to mention that you're only having one problem with one steaming application. you just made it sound like pulseaudio is the culprit behind all your sound latency. who knows? it may very well be the case that you don't know how to work with sound in linux and you're having sound latency with everything pulse is playing. but, yes, by all means, we should scrap pulseaudio, the whole application, mind you, not the plugin. just because you can't stream american idol correctly. are you sure you don't mean the alsa plugin for the pulseaudio application is what you're having a problem with? do you have the same issues with local files? have you even tried using oss? or esd? do you you even know what your asoundrc is for? oh wait, you're the one closing their eyes and blaming the complete application for your one application, yet, i've managed to get every single one of mine to work. sure if i tried to use shoutcast, i may possibly be able to duplicate your issue. however, i'd just find a workaround, like, gee, i don't know, since i've only given this 5 seconds of thought but how about finding something other than vlc? or at the least, a different audio output module in vlc. i had to find a workaround for wine/alsa/pulse because they wouldn't work together with the alsa plugin. however, even that was temporary. i had to patch wine for call of duty 4 and at the same time i updated the alsa plugin and the sound worked in wine on it's on. that's the miracle of updates and patience. as far as i can recall, it's been like this since i started with redhat 7. and now we're at fedora core. 9 almost!. things will be like this for a long time. get used to it.

what, do you just scrap a kernel because you can't load a module? don't worry, if you're having such an issue getting a handle on fedora/linux and it's not windowy, pointy clicky, do everything for you enough, i'm sure the windows community will take you back. lmao.
Find something other than vlc? Why? When I disable pulseaudio, the latency is gone. I think you missed that point.

[Jongi]

I've spent the last two weeks with PulseAudio installed. the concept behind is actually top notch. The implementation given that there are still apps (xdtv, tvtime being ones I use consistently) that don't use it makes it a bit of a problem. also the fact that it caused my xfce to take 10-15minutes to load up didn't endear it self much to me.

However I still keep my yes vote. When we have all apps allowing for pulseaudio support it will be immense.

[Jongi]

On www.pulseaudio.org, how can I tell if I am logged in? I see that I cannot create a bug report.

[moonshinerat]

In all honesty I think Pulseaudio is less of on issue and ALSA is more of a problem. I am half way through an article about sound in Linux, not just Fedora, and I now have over 1100 different threads in a database from different forums, and yes I mean threads, where people have narrowed their issues down to ALSA rather than Pulse. The article is actually getting a bit beyond me now and I'm not sure when I will finish it but I still have problems with ALSA.

Don't knock PulseAudio until it's had a few properly updated versions (and then if it still doesn't work). If you're using Fedora you should be used to 'bleeding edge' by now and developers just need more encouragement to progress with it rather than having their noses pushed out of something that could eventually make your life easier.

Those of you that have complained about latency seem to be right, there is a problem with this but as far as my Linux group has discovered this occurs when PulseAudio tries to interact with ALSA in a certain way. ALSA also has some remaining issues with chipset compatibility but who do you blame, ALSA or the chipset vendors (mentioning no names Intel!) for not providing enough open source support?

For too long I blamed Fedora, then Pulse, then ALSA. If Fedora provide better choices (we are using Linux aren't we) so those of us with problems can continue with older but working software then we are one step forwards. If Pulse could work with different sound interfaces then we are another step. If ALSA could respond to their bugreports properly then we would probably take another two steps.If manufacturers stop p!$$!ng about and provide some real support to developers like ALSA that aren't on the Microsoft payroll then we could all get payed properly (I say as a programmer), listen to our music, watch our movies and play 3d games and actually enjoy the experience rather than just *****in' to our fellow supporters and using our preciously little lifetime trying to get these things working......

Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe.....

Anyway chaps, back to the ALSA problem, speak to you next month.....

[Kirurgs]

What I personally don't like about Pulse is performance, everything else worked for me! Watching xvid and divx is acceptable but when it comes to hd, this starts to pay back. I use mplayer for playback as it's fast, feature rich etc. Mplayer with alsa (it's routed through pulse anyway) it shows less cpu usage than pulse, and oss is even more perfect, cpu usage is not noticable at all!
I'm the person who likes efficient computing, well my profession is all about performance ;)

[moonshinerat]

I know what you mean, its like Openoffice. The features are there (although some of them are pretty irritating to use) but it's a dog. Performance tends to be something that comes after the feature build (In Linux anyway).

I just want my Intel chipset to work properly. You can't buy motherboards in Ecuador where I live without Intel chipsets. In fact you can't buy anything that isn't Intel. Since I moved here I have found one Soundblaster Audigy card and one, single AMD processor. My Fedora sound doesn't work, my Ubuntu sound doesn't work, neither does Debian, Mandriva or Sidux. In fact, only Gentoo and Windows can produce an audible noise on the worlds most popular & basic motherboard based on 945 chipsets. How sad.

Sorry, veering off course. I still think Pulse should just be an option, along with ALSA and OSS and JACK.

[sideways]

I'm officially supporting pulseaudio as of now, even though I voted no in the poll. My experience with other systems than I originally tested on has been mainly great

:)

[rweed]

Pulse audio is brilliant. My understanding is that any issues you have with pulse-audio you would get the same problems with alsa.
Brilliant? PulseAudio simply allows sharing of the audio device (that's all it does, right?). Something Windows seems to do without any issues. However, for certain video sources for me (namely, VLC Shoutcast TV), there is very annoying latency.

Know how I solve my PulseAudio latency problem with VLC? I shut down VLC, kill PulseAudio, and restart VLC. ALSA does not have these latency issues.

Stop giving the George W. Bush response to "there is an issue here" by saying "no, there isn't."

BTW, when you say "My understanding is..." it's the same as saying "I don't really know what I'm talking about."

[GammaPoint]

Since many think it's awesome, there must be something to that. However, for me, since my last Fedora 8 reinstall pulseaudio doesn't work for me. So I'm happy if it's in Fedora 9, assuming that whatever the problem is is fixed or at least identified.

[Thetargos]

It may not be "awesome" as such, but the idea behind it is excellent. I must confess that F8's implementation is flaky (at best), but when it works there, you can TELL the difference. Minor features like independent volume levels per application (though cool) is not the most important part of PA (IMO), but the ability to have multiple sound stream sources playing sound at the same time. This may not seem like much, but since most modern audio solutions be it embedded or discrete cards lack hardware mixing (the ability to receive multiple streams) at least in their Linux drivers, this is HUGE for the average desktop use. Up until PA there had been attempts to solve this seeming ancient problem (ESD, aRTs, dmix in ALSA), but most of the time these applications incurred in various inconveniences, and were not always reliable enough (or induced too much "lag"). PA has many advantages over these other systems and what's best is that it is not tied to one or another desktop environment (like ESD/aRTs), and doesn't necessarily require the application (key feature) to know about it (unlike ESD and aRTs). When it works is wonderful, but sadly it doesn't always work, which is frustrating. However its early inclusion in F8 has exposed the system to much wider audience and hence development on it has been faster and hopefully it will mature enough to be reliable for F9 and beyond.

[strikeforce]

Brilliant? PulseAudio simply allows sharing of the audio device (that's all it does, right?). Something Windows seems to do without any issues. However, for certain video sources for me (namely, VLC Shoutcast TV), there is very annoying latency.

Know how I solve my PulseAudio latency problem with VLC? I shut down VLC, kill PulseAudio, and restart VLC. ALSA does not have these latency issues.

Stop giving the George W. Bush response to "there is an issue here" by saying "no, there isn't."

BTW, when you say "My understanding is..." it's the same as saying "I don't really know what I'm talking about."

Yeah I have no clue about anything cheers.

My understanding is.... does not equate to having no clue. That comment relates to the actual dev working on it on the fedora-devel mailing list.

If you have so many issues with PulseAudio work around it. I have had no issues so my perception is different to yours. Me considering it to be brilliant does not justify you saying I'm wrong because it doesn't work for you.

I'm glad you are taking the time to reply to this thread but your issues are your issues and they do not affect me.

Other options to solve your issue is doing a quick search on the mailing list for Lennart Poettering who has spent countless hours working through the bugs on a full time basis.

Although the easier option available to you are to jump on here and complain about people who have no issues with PA and who feel that it is brilliant.

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01547.html

That might help you.

Also I'm Australian not American so your example to George W. Bush is irrelevant and is only used to inflame your original post.

Sadly I neither have the time nor inclination to raise this post further into a flame war to satisfy your needs. I'm busy contributing documentation and packages to Fedora to hopefully make your life a bit better in the future. Feel free to try and flame me further though I've got a pretty thick skin.

[gadgetwiz]

The first thing I did was to remove pulse audio from my F8 KDE machine. After doing that, sound has worked flawlessly on the box.

I could really care less which sound server is used, as long as it's fast and it works. My needs in this area are meager. :cool:

[scottro]

I would probably do the same, but unfortunately, mplayer seems to require it. Like you, my needs are really simple. It seems to work quite well for some people, Ubuntu seems to have it working well with Gnome and not breaking sound for other things, so I imagine that sooner or later, it will work properly out of the box. (It might already if you use Gnome, but I don't, so have no idea.)

[bob]

(moved to Alpha-Beta)

[grujakg]

OK, let say this way, I'm not new or wannabe *nix user, rather more than a decade just in linux world.

PA out of the box and after a couple of days googling and trying dowsn't work. Sound from rythobox, totem, gmplayer etc, totally distorted almost unlistenable. Skype? O that piece certainly doesn't work whit PA. Right now I'm totally frustrated and almost close to kill some one.

Where came this need to fix something that ain't broken. If you want windblows like just use it, don't make others miserable...

[Thetargos]

Yes. Dealing with PA (especially if you were comfortable with previous sound solutions) can be frustrating. There has been a lot of changes in PA and ALSA, as some features in ALSA were missing so that PA would be more useful. Actually, the reasons behind PA are all valid, but as you have been experiencing, it still lacks a LOT. Among what it lacks still is proper capture. I have not had distorted sound in any apps yet, but that may be due to hardware differences. On the one hand it was actually a good idea the inclusion of PA since F8 as it has been making strides towards being more useful, but on the other hand it has made a lot of people miserable trying to figure it out.

[grujakg]

Maybe I was too frustrated to think clearly. Maybe PA isn't problem at all but my flaky hardware. Any one had problems with Intel HD (Realtec ALC883), and if is so, what you did to solve it?

And thanks for calm words, was so lost, so mad... So sorry to all for some of mine not so kind words.

[Thetargos]

Actually I have... Now that I think of it... In my laptop. However it seems to only affect a few programs (like pidgin) which don't fully support ESD (legacy support, and starting point for PA) or PA proper (no plugin for it yet, AFAIK). In its current state PA does not easily attain RT privileges (can be done, but not without SUID), and I do believe that they are working on getting this working better, as having RT priority will reduce latency by quite a lot and sound would hardly be distorted. In your case it may be more in relation to ALSA's own configuration in regards to the size of the buffer than anything else, which may be insufficient causing you to have buffer underruns (main cause of stutter and other sound "artifacts"). A good point to start would be the documentation from the ALSA wiki site (http://alsa.opensrc.org) so you could see how to check the current size of the buffer for your default PCM devices and how to increase it (and if increasing it actually DOES make any difference in the quality).