[arch-general] Basic questions about Linux's sound system

[Peter Nabbefeld]

Hello,

semms I'm missing some basic parts of the sound system. I've been told, 
ALSA is for the hardware, pulseaudio is for the infrastructure, and 
bluez provides for virtual bluetooth devices, so I understand it should 
look like this (ASCII graphics, please use monospaced font for viewing):



    +------------+   +-----------+
    | Rosegarden |   |   Totem   |
    +------------+   +-----------+   +-----------------+
    |   Jack     |   | GStreamer |   | Appl. using PA  |
    +------------+---+-----------+---+-----------------+
    |                Pulseaudio (PA)                   |
    +--------------------+---+-------------------------+
    |        ALSA        |   |         Bluez           |
    +--------------------+   +-------------------------+


This would imply, that ALSA cannot "see" Bluetooth devices, but that 
seems not to be the fact, so there's probably a misconfiguration on my 
laptop. There's a bridge (bluez-alsa-git) in the AUR, but I haven't 
installed it, so why can ALSA see my headset?

I'm asking this because of problems with HSP/HDP profile with my headset 
- if I've "coupled" the modules the wrong way, they'll probably block 
each other's functionality - especially, if ALSA and pulseaudio try to 
use the Bluez device at the same time ...

Kind regards
Peter