[arch-general] PulseAudio in [testing]

[Ng Oon-Ee]

On Sat, 2010-11-27 at 11:55 +0000, Peter Lewis wrote:
> On Saturday 27 November 2010 06:30:36 Ng Oon-Ee wrote:
> > > >> Good to see the overwhelming positive lean; is pulse being considered
> > > >> for an eventual default by chance?
> > > > 
> > > > Almost nothing is default on Arch...
> >
> > So you should ask Gnome. And the answer is that yes, it will be default
> > on Gnome. If you do not use Gnome, then only if the apps you pull need
> > it.
> 
> Given that it's been said that if pulse is installed on your system and a 
> program calls its client lib, then this starts the pulse server, which in turn 
> takes over your whole sound system and forces everything else to use it (I'm 
> paraphrasing, but that's what I understood), I for one would not like pulse to 
> be a required dependency of anything. I'm not trying to troll, but that sounds 
> like malware to me.
> 
> Pete.

In the various branches of this thread there's quite a few
misunderstandings of pulse. Not unexpected, but please remember that
hearsay isn't the same as actually trying to use something (and perhaps
understand it).

You cannot (without quite a bit of effort) use pulseaudio and native
alsa. That is, don't use some apps using pulse and some not (I do, but
that's hackish, and its Jack not alsa). Similarly if you use nvidia you
cannot use neovoeu at the same time. Pulse handles audio, nvidia handles
your card.

And the whole point of how pulseaudio is built in [testing] (libpulse
package) is that apps can be built with it (and drag libpulse in) but
will not need to use it, unless configured to do it. So no takeover for
those who AREN'T using it, which is part of what Jan asked for feedback
for (as Allan has replied already).