Arch Linux

Hell-G

Member

Registered: 2016-12-14

Posts: 2

[SOLVED] Sound for system users - pulseaudio when no user is logged in

Hi!

I have been using many services where the Arch repository provides a corresponding systemd service and a system user. I like this system and it works really well, especially for web services. But recently I have been having problems with system users when trying to play sounds/music using pulseaudio. Maybe let's use the example MPD.

I have been playing around with MPD for many years and it works fine. But I have never been able to get that configuration working that I really want. I have done extensive searches in wikis, forums and search engines, but it almost seams like, that I want to do something that nobody else wants to do.
Simply put, I want to have MPD running on my computer where no user is logged in, control it from another PC or my mobile and direct the output to my stereo, which is directly connected to that PC where MPD is running.

The difference to everything that I found online seems to be the fact, that no user will be logged in. If a regular user is logged in, then there are several solutions that work. This especially means, that an instance of the pulseaudio server will be running, where MPD can send the output to.

In different places I read, that it is a bad idea to have a system wide pulseaudio server running. So my question is, is there a possibility to get sound using pulseaudio for system users like mpd, when no regular user is logged in?

Thank you very much for your help and input!

Hell-G

Last edited by Hell-G (2018-02-01 09:41:09)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,534

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Sound for system users - pulseaudio when no user is logged in

I have done extensive searches in wikis...

Odd, given that this is explicitly covered in the wiki.

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"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

Hell-G

Member

Registered: 2016-12-14

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Sound for system users - pulseaudio when no user is logged in

Thank you very much Trilby for your reply!
Now that you are pointing it out, "autospawn" does sound familiar. I probably read it the first few times, when I was setting up MPD, but must have overlooked it recently, when I was looking for a solution to this specific problem. I am sorry about that!

But I am very happy now, that it is finally working exactly the way I wanted it to. Thank you very much for your help! Hopefully, this will also solve my issue with home-assistant not playing any sounds. I will try.