[arch-general] Is there a clean solution to get completely rid of Pulseaudio?

[Paul Gideon Dann]

On Friday 23 Dec 2011 10:51:17 Ralf Madorf wrote:
> I had GNOME3 installed for Debian and 2 dummy packages solved all
> issues, since GNOME3 doesn't need PA, just some "my computer should be a
> toy, instead of a tool" tasks need PA.
> 
> Okay, if the policy of Arch Linux is to force people to install unneeded
> stuff, than it simply isn't the distro I should use.

I'm sorry to hear you're unhappy with your ArchLinux setup.  Sadly, the 
PulseAudio requirement appears to be imposed by GNOME upstream, and there's 
nothing that ArchLinux can do other than patch GNOME, which would not be in 
keeping with the "Arch Way" (http://bit.ly/eOyYlB).

However, if I understand correctly, you're interested in using ArchLinux for a 
Digital Audio Workstation?  If you only need to use a couple of tools, you may 
find that you don't need a desktop environment, and could get away with a light 
window manager (e.g. OpenBox?) and login manager (SLiM?).

Alternatively, you could consider using KDE, which does not have a hard 
dependency on PulseAudio.  It's had a bad reputation for being resource-heavy, 
but that's not really the case these days, so long as you don't use any of the 
heavier features (e.g. Kontact); especially if you disable the "Semantic 
Desktop" in System Settings.

I hope this helps,
Paul