[arch-dev-public] PulseAudio in [extra]

[Stéphane Gaudreault]

Le dimanche 14 novembre 2010 15:11:40, Jan Steffens a écrit :
> I would like to propose moving support for the PulseAudio sound server into
> Arch Linux proper. This would also be in preparation for the eventual
> arrival of Gnome 3, since it will be unlikely we can effectively maintain
> the needed GStreamer patch any more.
> 
> To that effect I have created a plan:
> 
> ---
> 
> To provide PulseAudio in [extra]...
> 
> Move the following packages from [community] to [extra]:
> - libasyncns
> - rtkit
> - pulseaudio (split into pulseaudio and libpulse)
> - alsa-plugins
> - pulseaudio-alsa
>     Configuration package, contains /etc/asound.conf
>     depends on pulseaudio, alsa-plugins
> - pavucontrol
> - paprefs
> - pulseaudio-mixer-applet
> - ossp
>     provides osspd OSS emulator
> 
> Rebuild the following packages with PulseAudio support:
> - sdl (sdl-pulse in AUR)
> - openal (openal-pulse in AUR)
> - libgstreamer0.10-good
>     split gstreamer0.10-pulse (in community)
> - libao
>     split libao-pulse (in community)
> - libcanberra
>     split libcanberra-pulse (in community)
>     will be a split plugin instead of a wholly rebuilt copy
> - gnome-media
>     split gnome-media-pulse (in community; rebuilt with --enable-pulse)
> - gnome-settings-daemon
>     split gnome-settings-daemon-pulse (in community; rebuilt without
> gstreamer patch)
> 
> Provide the following groups:
> - pulseaudio-gnome
>     pulseaudio-alsa
>     libcanberra-pulse
>     gstreamer0.10-pulse
>     gnome-media-pulse
>     gnome-settings-daemon-pulse
> 
> ---
> 
> One of the problems of PulseAudio is that it pretty much becomes the
> default as soon as you install it:
>   - The client library will start the server if it's not running.
>   - pulseaudio will install .desktop files that autostart the server
> together with Gnome or KDE.
> 
> Splitting libpulse would prevent that, but I believe we still need to test
> on a per-application basis whether we can enable PulseAudio support (with a
> dependency on libpulse) without breaking fallback to ALSA on systems
> without pulseaudio.
> 
> Some packages (like sdl and openal) look for libpulse dynamically and will
> still work even though the lib is missing, so they only need an optional
> dependency.
> 
> I would be maintaining split -pulse packages where needed.


Personally, I do not have any objection as long as you make sure it is always 
possible to have a system running KDE, sdl, vlc and mplayer and other popular 
multimedia applications without needing to install one of these packages or to 
run the PA server.

According to PA author [1], "adopting PA in a distribution is a fair amount of 
work, given that it interfaces with so many different things at so many 
different places". It also seems that one has to be very carefull to avoid 
breakages with new releases (even on minor releases).

Out of curiosity, what would the consequences to have all these news packages 
in [community] instead of [extra]?

Regards,

Stéphane

[1] http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/jeffrey-stedfast.html