Which packages for PulseAudio under KDE?

whaler · 2010-07-01 15:56:26

According to SMPlayer's forum moderator, I should let SMPlayer use PulseAudio in order to enable fast forward (used to work fine with Alsa before...). I see many PulseAudio-related packages in Community and Aur, but which are necessary and/or recommended under KDE? I only need it for SMPlayer. Or so I believe...

denisfalqueto · 2010-07-01 16:08:56

It depends on the audio backend you use. I use phonon-xyne and there's no need for any other packages, as xyne already has a good support for puseaudio. I believe that phonon-gstreamer needs gstreamer0.10-pulse. I have it for other applications that my need gstreamer anyway.

qubit · 2010-07-01 18:23:17

SMPlayer depends on mplayer, therefor You need mplayer with PulseAudio support. There is mplayer-pulse in AUR.
And of course You need PulseAudio installed and working - see wiki

whaler · 2010-07-02 19:13:14

Thanks for the replies! I should perhaps have guessed that there is a wiki for PulseAudio...

@denisfalqueto - is phonon-xyne a replacement for alsa/oss, or just an addition? Would you recommend installing it for someone who is not doing anything special with sound/music?

Edit: I have read the wiki, installed the PulsAudio packages and mplayer-pulse, and then reread the wiki and the problem section, but I still have a very silent system. No sound at all.

Last edited by whaler (2010-07-03 00:07:48)

whaler · 2010-07-27 19:10:46

OK, after a LOT of fumbling and hair-pulling I now have pulseaudio installed AND I have sound in most apps. Talk about getting two birds with one stone...

KDE's System Activity shows Pulseaudio running, but vanilla (S)MPlayer (I am not using the Pulseaudio MPlayer)is working and has sound. That is weird. On the other hand, KNotify crashes when starting KDE, as does DragonPlayer, which might be indicative of at least some rudimentary Pulseaudio in action...??

VLC and Flash(plugin) are also OK. However, I am still not sure the system is really utilizing Pulseaudio, or somehow using/reverting to ALSA. The simple volume control and manager apps for Pulseaudio are working, except the panel for system sounds being "greyed out". This tallies with the crashes I mention above.

I seem to remember there was a place to tell KDE to use Pulseaudio, but I may be wrong. Does anyone have a tip about how to verify the actual state of, or utilization of, Pulseaudio?

KlavKalashj · 2010-07-28 08:01:55

I use pulseaudio with phonon-xine, but I guess this is useful for you too:

pcm.pulse {
    type pulse
}
ctl.pulse {
    type pulse
}
pcm.!default {
    type pulse
}
ctl.!default {
    type pulse
}

pcm.phononpulse {
  type plug
  slave.pcm {
    type pulse
  }
  hint {
    show on
    description "PulseAudio"
  }
}

in /etc/asound.conf. This makes pulseaudio show up in multimedia settings in system settings, and you can choose it there. Works fine for me.
also, pavocontrol is a good app for managing pulseaudio.

whaler · 2010-07-29 00:05:13

Thank you. By adding the last argument ("pcm.phononpulse", etc.) to asound.conf, Pulseaudio did indeed show up in the Multimedia settings list. I moved it to the top and KDE's KNotify told me it would use Pulseaudio henceforth.

But, but, but... although sound is working in all important apps, as before this change, DragonPlayer still crashes, and KNotify crashes when trying to play the KDE startup theme. Funnily, it has no problem playing the theme for *leaving* KDE

These are hardly show-stoppers - I only want my Arch to work perfectly!

Arch Linux

#1 2010-07-01 15:56:26

Which packages for PulseAudio under KDE?

#2 2010-07-01 16:08:56

Re: Which packages for PulseAudio under KDE?

#3 2010-07-01 18:23:17

Re: Which packages for PulseAudio under KDE?

#4 2010-07-02 19:13:14

Re: Which packages for PulseAudio under KDE?

#5 2010-07-27 19:10:46

Re: Which packages for PulseAudio under KDE?

#6 2010-07-28 08:01:55

Re: Which packages for PulseAudio under KDE?

#7 2010-07-29 00:05:13

Re: Which packages for PulseAudio under KDE?

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