[arch-general] Firefox 52 Audio broken
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken. This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by default in firefox. However firefox can still be build with ALSA support. Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this package from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing. Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support.
On 07/03/17 18:29, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken. This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by default in firefox. However firefox can still be build with ALSA support.
Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this package from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing.
Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support.
Upstream changed to pulseaudio by default. Arch follows upstream You can compile firefox yourself to set it being alsa only. A
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 07:00:12PM +1000, Allan McRae wrote:
On 07/03/17 18:29, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken. This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by default in firefox. However firefox can still be build with ALSA support.
Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this package from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing.
Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support.
Upstream changed to pulseaudio by default. Arch follows upstream
You can compile firefox yourself to set it being alsa only.
A
Building firefox takes hours making this not really an option for many users. Arch has deviated before from the upstream default, I see no reason why we should follow upstream by restricting the choice of the user.
On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 10:26 AM, jjgaris via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 07:00:12PM +1000, Allan McRae wrote:
On 07/03/17 18:29, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken. This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by default in firefox. However firefox can still be build with ALSA support.
Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this package from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing.
Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support.
Upstream changed to pulseaudio by default. Arch follows upstream
You can compile firefox yourself to set it being alsa only.
A
Building firefox takes hours making this not really an option for many users. Arch has deviated before from the upstream default, I see no reason why we should follow upstream by restricting the choice of the user.
Does a kind soul provide an alternative build of Firefox? I had to remove pulse audio from my system due to a bug, while Alsa works just fine.
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 10:26:55 +0100, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Building firefox takes hours making this not really an option for many users.
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 10:49:25 +0100, SanskritFritz via arch-general wrote:
Does a kind soul provide an alternative build of Firefox?
Assuming time shouldn't be an issue for you, consider to build Firefox using ABS. Assuming your tmpfs should be only around 2 GiB small, then better don't build in /tmp, "df -h" does show. I haven't tested with 4 GiB tmpfs, but I suspect that this should work. AUR provides palemoon-bin and icecat-bin, both are based upon firefox, "bin" means that you don't need to compile them. Community provides qupzilla, a web browser similar to firefox. I don't have pulseaudio installed, but all the mentioned browsers. I don't know, if they still work without pulseaudio, since I usually only use audio for audio productions and seldom with a web browser. Regards, Ralf
As a workaround, have you tried using apulse? It is a pulseaudio emulation for ALSA. Some time ago, I used it successfully to run Skype (which also depends on pulseaudio) without having pulseaudio installed. Am 07.03.2017 um 10:49 schrieb SanskritFritz via arch-general:
On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 10:26 AM, jjgaris via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 07:00:12PM +1000, Allan McRae wrote:
On 07/03/17 18:29, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken. This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by default in firefox. However firefox can still be build with ALSA support.
Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this package from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing. Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support. Upstream changed to pulseaudio by default. Arch follows upstream
You can compile firefox yourself to set it being alsa only.
A Building firefox takes hours making this not really an option for many users. Arch has deviated before from the upstream default, I see no reason why we should follow upstream by restricting the choice of the user.
Does a kind soul provide an alternative build of Firefox? I had to remove pulse audio from my system due to a bug, while Alsa works just fine.
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 04:00:18PM +0100, Carlchristian Eckert wrote:
As a workaround, have you tried using apulse? It is a pulseaudio emulation for ALSA. Some time ago, I used it successfully to run Skype (which also depends on pulseaudio) without having pulseaudio installed.
I was just experimenting with that and while the warning message disappered when run with apulsse, the sound does not work unfortunately.
Am 07.03.2017 um 10:49 schrieb SanskritFritz via arch-general:
On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 10:26 AM, jjgaris via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 07:00:12PM +1000, Allan McRae wrote:
On 07/03/17 18:29, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken. This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by default in firefox. However firefox can still be build with ALSA support.
Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this package from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing. Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support. Upstream changed to pulseaudio by default. Arch follows upstream
You can compile firefox yourself to set it being alsa only.
A Building firefox takes hours making this not really an option for many users. Arch has deviated before from the upstream default, I see no reason why we should follow upstream by restricting the choice of the user.
Does a kind soul provide an alternative build of Firefox? I had to remove pulse audio from my system due to a bug, while Alsa works just fine.
And make a package for firefox-esr[1]? It could maintain the ALSA support and plugins support. [1]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/ 2017-03-07 16:14 GMT+01:00 jjgaris via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org>:
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 04:00:18PM +0100, Carlchristian Eckert wrote:
As a workaround, have you tried using apulse? It is a pulseaudio emulation for ALSA. Some time ago, I used it successfully to run Skype (which also depends on pulseaudio) without having pulseaudio installed.
I was just experimenting with that and while the warning message disappered when run with apulsse, the sound does not work unfortunately.
Am 07.03.2017 um 10:49 schrieb SanskritFritz via arch-general:
On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 10:26 AM, jjgaris via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 07:00:12PM +1000, Allan McRae wrote:
On 07/03/17 18:29, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken. This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by
firefox.
However firefox can still be build with ALSA support.
Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this
default in package
from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing.
Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support. Upstream changed to pulseaudio by default. Arch follows upstream
You can compile firefox yourself to set it being alsa only.
A Building firefox takes hours making this not really an option for many users. Arch has deviated before from the upstream default, I see no reason why we should follow upstream by restricting the choice of the user.
Does a kind soul provide an alternative build of Firefox? I had to remove pulse audio from my system due to a bug, while Alsa works just fine.
-- Óscar García Amor | ogarcia at moire.org | http://ogarcia.me
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 16:00:18 +0100, Carlchristian Eckert wrote:
As a workaround, have you tried using apulse? It is a pulseaudio emulation for ALSA. Some time ago, I used it successfully to run Skype (which also depends on pulseaudio) without having pulseaudio installed.
I don't know, if the required asoundrc could have impact on real-time pro-audio usage. I won't test it. [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ cat /usr/share/apulse/asoundrc.sample pcm.!default { type plug slave.pcm "asymed" } pcm.asymed { type asym playback.pcm { @func getenv vars [ ALSAPCM ] default "dmix" } capture.pcm "dsnoop" } On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 15:26:52 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
[rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ time makepkg -s ==> Making package: firefox 52.0-2 (Tue Mar 7 15:21:51 CET 2017) [...]
No space left on device [...] ==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build(). Aborting... real 61m48.492s user 100m10.263s sys 4m25.917s [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ df -h | grep /tmp tmpfs 3.9G 3.8G 105M 98% /tmp At least we now know, that around 4 GiB tmps aren't enough. On another day I'll compile it on a SSD instead of compiling it in RAM. Continuing an audio production and compiling Firefox at the same time unfortunately isn't an option. Regards, Ralf
On 07-03-17 21:14, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 16:00:18 +0100, Carlchristian Eckert wrote:
As a workaround, have you tried using apulse? It is a pulseaudio emulation for ALSA. Some time ago, I used it successfully to run Skype (which also depends on pulseaudio) without having pulseaudio installed.
I don't know, if the required asoundrc could have impact on real-time pro-audio usage. I won't test it.
I just tested apulse-git successfully, no changes to my alsa setup were needed. LW
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 22:18:19 +0100, LoneVVolf wrote:
On 07-03-17 21:14, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 16:00:18 +0100, Carlchristian Eckert wrote:
As a workaround, have you tried using apulse? It is a pulseaudio emulation for ALSA. Some time ago, I used it successfully to run Skype (which also depends on pulseaudio) without having pulseaudio installed.
I don't know, if the required asoundrc could have impact on real-time pro-audio usage. I won't test it.
I just tested apulse-git successfully, no changes to my alsa setup were needed.
Thank you, I confirm that apulse-git works with Firefox 52.0-1 and an asoundrc isn't required :). [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ apulse firefox >/dev/null 1&>2 [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ pacman -Ql apulse-git apulse-git /usr/ apulse-git /usr/bin/ apulse-git /usr/bin/apulse apulse-git /usr/lib/ apulse-git /usr/lib/apulse/ apulse-git /usr/lib/apulse/libpulse-simple.so apulse-git /usr/lib/apulse/libpulse-simple.so.0 apulse-git /usr/lib/apulse/libpulse.so apulse-git /usr/lib/apulse/libpulse.so.0 apulse-git /usr/lib/apulse/libpulsecommon-5.0.so apulse-git /usr/share/ apulse-git /usr/share/licenses/ apulse-git /usr/share/licenses/apulse-git/ apulse-git /usr/share/licenses/apulse-git/LICENSE [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ pacman -Q firefox firefox 52.0-1 In the meantime I didn't make music, instead I build Firefox again. It takes around 1 hour to build Firefox with a 2.8 GHz Celeron dual-core, 8 GiB DDR3 RAM, on a SSD SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s. After building it with "--enable-alsa" ALSA support works again. So for now I'll use Firefox with ALSA support enabled, but next time I'll use apulse from git with Firefox from extra. [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ time makepkg -s ==> Making package: firefox 52.0-2 (Tue Mar 7 21:20:33 CET 2017) [snip] ==> Finished making: firefox 52.0-2 (Tue Mar 7 22:21:13 CET 2017) real 60m40.319s user 104m47.026s sys 4m31.483s [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ grep pkgrel= PKGBUILD pkgrel=2 [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ grep -B2 -A2 e-alsa PKGBUILD ac_add_options --prefix=/usr ac_add_options --enable-alsa ac_add_options --enable-release ac_add_options --enable-gold [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ pacman -Q firefox firefox 52.0-2 [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ firefox >/dev/null 1&>2 Regards, Ralf
On 03/07/2017 05:04 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 22:18:19 +0100, LoneVVolf wrote:
On 07-03-17 21:14, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 16:00:18 +0100, Carlchristian Eckert wrote:
As a workaround, have you tried using apulse? It is a pulseaudio emulation for ALSA. Some time ago, I used it successfully to run Skype (which also depends on pulseaudio) without having pulseaudio installed.
I don't know, if the required asoundrc could have impact on real-time pro-audio usage. I won't test it.
I just tested apulse-git successfully, no changes to my alsa setup were needed.
Thank you,
I confirm that apulse-git works with Firefox 52.0-1 and an asoundrc isn't required :).
Keep in mind that firefox 52.0-2 uses "ac_add_options --enable-alsa" Carry on... -- Eli Schwartz
On 08/03/17 08:14, Eli Schwartz via arch-general wrote:
On 03/07/2017 05:04 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 22:18:19 +0100, LoneVVolf wrote:
On 07-03-17 21:14, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 16:00:18 +0100, Carlchristian Eckert wrote:
As a workaround, have you tried using apulse? It is a pulseaudio emulation for ALSA. Some time ago, I used it successfully to run Skype (which also depends on pulseaudio) without having pulseaudio installed.
I don't know, if the required asoundrc could have impact on real-time pro-audio usage. I won't test it.
I just tested apulse-git successfully, no changes to my alsa setup were needed.
Thank you,
I confirm that apulse-git works with Firefox 52.0-1 and an asoundrc isn't required :).
Keep in mind that firefox 52.0-2 uses "ac_add_options --enable-alsa"
Carry on...
Until firefox-54, which will return to pulse because it breaks alsa... A
On Wed, 8 Mar 2017 08:31:21 +1000, Allan McRae wrote:
On 08/03/17 08:14, Eli Schwartz via arch-general wrote:
On 03/07/2017 05:04 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
I confirm that apulse-git works with Firefox 52.0-1 and an asoundrc isn't required :).
Keep in mind that firefox 52.0-2 uses "ac_add_options --enable-alsa"
Carry on...
Until firefox-54, which will return to pulse because it breaks alsa...
Reply to Eli: I tested apulse from git with firefox 52.0-1 from extra, so apart from the redirect typo, there's no mistake. On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 23:04:20 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
[rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ apulse firefox >/dev/null 1&>2 [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ pacman -Ql apulse-git [snip] [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ pacman -Q firefox firefox 52.0-1
_After_ testing apulse I upgraded to the version I build with alsa-enabled.
[rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ pacman -Q firefox firefox 52.0-2
Reply to Allan: In the future I'll use apulse. Hopefully the AUR PKGBUILD then will follow https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VCS_package_guidelines#Git . Regards, Ralf
On 2017-03-07 10:26, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 07:00:12PM +1000, Allan McRae wrote:
On 07/03/17 18:29, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken. This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by default in firefox. However firefox can still be build with ALSA support.
Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this package from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing.
Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support.
Upstream changed to pulseaudio by default. Arch follows upstream
You can compile firefox yourself to set it being alsa only.
A
Building firefox takes hours making this not really an option for many users. Arch has deviated before from the upstream default, I see no reason why we should follow upstream by restricting the choice of the user.
Convince upstream to bring Alsa back as default. That's pretty much EOT from anyone involved into packaging in Arch. BP
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 12:48:59PM +0100, Bartłomiej Piotrowski wrote:
On 2017-03-07 10:26, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 07:00:12PM +1000, Allan McRae wrote:
On 07/03/17 18:29, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken. This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by default in firefox. However firefox can still be build with ALSA support.
Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this package from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing.
Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support.
Upstream changed to pulseaudio by default. Arch follows upstream
You can compile firefox yourself to set it being alsa only.
A
Building firefox takes hours making this not really an option for many users. Arch has deviated before from the upstream default, I see no reason why we should follow upstream by restricting the choice of the user.
Convince upstream to bring Alsa back as default. That's pretty much EOT from anyone involved into packaging in Arch.
BP
There is no reason to restrict the use of audio servers because upstream uses a hard dependency by default. A lot of work and time has been spend by a lot of people to build alternative audioservers (like JACK) and enable them to be used by firefox. This work is pretty much wasted if arch prevents users from choosing their own audio servers. The possibility of compiling the software ourselfs won't change that since very few will/can do that. One solution I could think of is an alternative firefox package (not in AUR) that still allows users to make their own choice. Would that be a possibility?
On 07/03/17 23:09, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
One solution I could think of is an alternative firefox package (not in AUR) that still allows users to make their own choice. Would that be a possibility?
No.
On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 14:09:16 +0100, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
One solution I could think of is an alternative firefox package (not in AUR) that still allows users to make their own choice. Would that be a possibility?
Hi, I build with [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ grep enable-alsa PKGBUILD ac_add_options --enable-alsa [rocketmouse@archlinux firefox]$ time makepkg -s ==> Making package: firefox 52.0-2 (Tue Mar 7 15:21:51 CET 2017) [...] IIUC this is the option that needs to be added. If you should use x86_64 architecture I could send the package off-list to those who want it, too. Assuming it should build ;). Regards, Ralf
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 10:26:55AM +0100, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Building firefox takes hours making this not really an option for many users. Arch has deviated before from the upstream default, I see no reason why we should follow upstream by restricting the choice of the user.
Linux is _not_ about choice [1] cheers, chris [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-January/msg00861.html
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 05:23:42PM +0100, Christian Rebischke wrote:
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 10:26:55AM +0100, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
Building firefox takes hours making this not really an option for many users. Arch has deviated before from the upstream default, I see no reason why we should follow upstream by restricting the choice of the user.
Linux is _not_ about choice [1]
cheers,
chris
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-January/msg00861.html
So what? Is linux now about restricting user choice? While I generally agree with the referenced text, using it to justify restricting user chouce without reason is just nonsence. The way it is used, it is also one of the most stupid sentences ever created.
So what? Is linux now about restricting user choice?
Arch is a pragmatic distribution, both for the users and developers. Upstream decided to make pulseaudio a hard dependency specifically to reduce maintenance costs on their end. Arch devs really aren't in the business of adopting such maintenance costs. The pragmatic solution is to follow upstream. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the Firefox devs, not us.
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 05:32:30PM +0100, jjgaris via arch-general wrote:
So what? Is linux now about restricting user choice? While I generally agree with the referenced text, using it to justify restricting user chouce without reason is just nonsence. The way it is used, it is also one of the most stupid sentences ever created.
Sorry, but where do you see user-restriction? Firefox is opensource, you can compile it by yourself or even provide a binary in the AUR. Nobody would restrict you. You can even fork the firefox project. So please, don't come with 'restricting user choice'.
On 07-03-17 10:00, Allan McRae wrote:
Upstream changed to pulseaudio by default. Arch follows upstream
You can compile firefox yourself to set it being alsa only.
A
Allan, if we really want to follow firefox upstream, we should : - stop replacing the libraries upstream bundles with system libs, - disable gold linker - disable pie - disable rust support etc. We don't follow upstream firefox now, do you have other reasons to leave out alsa support ? Lone_Wolf from firefox PKGBUILD : ac_add_options --enable-gold ac_add_options --enable-pie ac_add_options --enable-rust # System libraries ac_add_options --with-system-nspr ac_add_options --with-system-nss ac_add_options --with-system-icu ac_add_options --with-system-jpeg ac_add_options --with-system-zlib ac_add_options --with-system-bz2 ac_add_options --with-system-libevent ac_add_options --with-system-libvpx ac_add_options --enable-system-hunspell ac_add_options --enable-system-sqlite ac_add_options --enable-system-ffi ac_add_options --enable-system-pixman
On 03/07/17 at 12:15pm, LoneVVolf wrote:
if we really want to follow firefox upstream, we should : - stop replacing the libraries upstream bundles with system libs, - disable gold linker - disable pie - disable rust support
etc.
We don't follow upstream firefox now, do you have other reasons to leave out alsa support ?
No, we follow software defaults which libraries or CFLAGS we use has nothing to do with that. -- Jelle van der Waa
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken.
nope, it works fine. alas, ALSA support in Firefox has become unmaintained … this means if Arch reverts to ALSA it'll be shipping worse code just for the few people that choose to not use Pulseaudio (for their own reasons).
This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by default in firefox. However firefox can still be build with ALSA support.
Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this package from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing.
Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support.
-- damjan
On Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 01:58:15PM +0100, Damjan Georgievski via arch-general wrote:
Since the update to firefox 52 the audio support has been broken.
nope, it works fine.
alas, ALSA support in Firefox has become unmaintained … this means if Arch reverts to ALSA it'll be shipping worse code just for the few people that choose to not use Pulseaudio (for their own reasons).
This seems to be because pulse audio is now a dependency by default in firefox. However firefox can still be build with ALSA support.
Without getting into any dicussion about issues about pulseaudio itself, I believe it should be possible to use firefox on arch without being forces to use pulse audio. I am certainly not the only one to have banned this package from my boxes. And having more choices is certainly a good thing.
Not sure this is the right place but I would like to ask to change back to the old defaults (ALSA). With the old defaults, the user can choose to use pulse audio (or JACK) or stay with plain ALSA support.
-- damjan
Several firefox developers still choose to use firefox build with ALSA support. While official support may not exist, it still works will will continue to do so. And while I wanted to avoid the discussion about why not to use pulseaudio, let me respond by saying ther is no worse code then pulseaudio... And there are not only a few people who chose to remove pulseaudio from their systems. In any case I believe it should be a goal to let the users decide what software they want to use, especially if it does not create extra work. (Using pulseaudio by default will however create a lot of work for a lot of people) Again, there is no reason to follow the decision by upstream, it will only create problems and extra work while restricting the freedom of the users. I could understand this if deviating from upstream meant more work, but it is only a matter of setting another compile flag. If future version do not work with ALSA anymore this can be change but at the moment it does work.
participants (13)
-
Allan McRae
-
Bartłomiej Piotrowski
-
Carlchristian Eckert
-
Christian Rebischke
-
Damjan Georgievski
-
Eli Schwartz
-
Jelle van der Waa
-
jjgaris
-
LoneVVolf
-
Maxwell Anselm
-
Ralf Mardorf
-
SanskritFritz
-
Óscar García Amor