Arch Linux

zenos

Member

Registered: 2008-09-23

Posts: 23

PulseAudio

Is pulseaudio worth using? Am I missing anything by just using alsa? Thanks..

Maki

Member

From: Skopje, Macedonia

Registered: 2007-10-16

Posts: 353

Website

Re: PulseAudio

Pulse audio will give you a lot more control with apps like outputing sound from different apps to different card, volume setting per app (for those without built in volume control), and also its network capable (So you can stream it to another pc).

---

If it ain't broke, broke it then fix it.

zenos

Member

Registered: 2008-09-23

Posts: 23

Re: PulseAudio

the only thing i do with audio is listen to music and watch videos.  is there any difference in quality with pulse audio?

tomdbike

Member

Registered: 2008-09-07

Posts: 25

Re: PulseAudio

the only thing i do with audio is listen to music and watch videos.  is there any difference in quality with pulse audio?

No. I use ALSA and I can listen to music, youtube and playing a game at the same time with all the sounds coming out!

xdeusx

Member

Registered: 2007-10-15

Posts: 168

Re: PulseAudio

I use pulseaudio, apart from minor glitches it works very well.
However I did not experience a difference in sound quality.
But that's not why I installed it. I love being able to set the volume per application and switch the output on the fly to my usb sound card.

luciferin

Member

Registered: 2007-05-10

Posts: 144

Re: PulseAudio

PulseAudio is more currently more of a hassle than it's worth in my opinion.  Unless you have a need for a specific feature of PA then I really wouldn't bother.

As far as quality, PulseAudio uses ALSA in the end to access the soundcard, so the quality should be the same.

thunderogg

Member

From: Rio de Janeiro

Registered: 2008-07-13

Posts: 172

Re: PulseAudio

I don't use pulseaudio. Have never missed it. When I was using Fedora it took 5% CPU so I removed it.

zenos

Member

Registered: 2008-09-23

Posts: 23

Re: PulseAudio

Thanks, my questions have been answered. I always wondered what the big deal was and why alot of distros were starting to use it.

jiu

Member

From: Auckland, New Zealand

Registered: 2008-05-03

Posts: 31

Re: PulseAudio

Pulse audio bugs are one of the main reasons why I switched to Archlinux (from Ubuntu 8.04). I just can't stand sound not working on my laptop. When it's ready (in a year...) and the web's not covered with complaints about its bugs, then I'll reconsider.

sand_man

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-06-10

Posts: 2,164

Re: PulseAudio

I keep hearing about PulseAudio and being able to set volume per app. I use OSS and ossxmix does this without the need of PulseAudio.
Another win for OSS v ALSA

---

test1000

Member

Registered: 2005-04-03

Posts: 834

Re: PulseAudio

afaik oss has it's own problems though? flash problems? java problems? wine problems? x problems? is oss even maintained anymore, didn't the guy go out of business? he opensourced it and lost all his revenue

---

KISS = "It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience." - Albert Einstein

Maskawanian

Member

Registered: 2009-01-06

Posts: 29

Re: PulseAudio

afaik oss has it's own problems though? flash problems? java problems? wine problems? x problems? is oss even maintained anymore, didn't the guy go out of business? he opensourced it and lost all his revenue

Flash problems? Flash works fine.

It is open source, and requires less configuration. That plus Digital Audio out on Intel HDA audio doesn't yet work well with ALSA. I'll stick with OSS thank you and have better hardware support

sand_man

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-06-10

Posts: 2,164

Re: PulseAudio

afaik oss has it's own problems though? flash problems? java problems? wine problems? x problems? is oss even maintained anymore, didn't the guy go out of business? he opensourced it and lost all his revenue

I have none of the problems you mention and OSS uses less CPU time too
I'll shut up now before I get this thread locked.

---

Void_Walker

Member

Registered: 2009-06-17

Posts: 53

Re: PulseAudio

I have a question... does pulseaudio solve the problem with flashplugins laggy sound (if i have firefox opened for too long) The sound lags and i can even hear it after i shut firefox down.

methuselah

Member

Registered: 2007-10-02

Posts: 570

Re: PulseAudio

OSSv4 sounds much better than alsa in my opinion.

Just follow every step in the wiki guide: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/OSS

moljac024

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 2,676

Re: PulseAudio

I just started using pulseaudio.
Not being able to have sound from youtube and mpd at the same time just drove me crazy and I snapped (I would have to stop mpd, and restart firefox to be able to have sound in youtube). I couldn't take it anymore.

---

The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,355

Re: PulseAudio

I love Pulse, but you need to set it up properly. That's why I came to Arch, so I could control it isntead of relying on packagers.

Sound quality isn't better though.

---

Allan-Volunteer on the (topic being discussed) mailn lists. You never get the people who matters attention on the forums.
jasonwryan-Installing Arch is a measure of your literacy. Maintaining Arch is a measure of your diligence. Contributing to Arch is a measure of your competence.
Griemak-Bleeding edge, not bleeding flat. Edge denotes falls will occur from time to time. Bring your own parachute.

ugkbunb

Member

Registered: 2009-02-26

Posts: 227

Re: PulseAudio

i had horrible headaches with PulseAudio... when it worked it was nice... but more often then not it caused glitchy scratchy laggy sound output. Since switching over to OSSV4 I have had zero problems and the sound quality could not be better. Sound from multiple sources just works... every time... and without lag... gotta love kernel space mixing.

OSSv4 sounds much better than alsa in my opinion.

Just follow every step in the wiki guide: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/OSS

agreed!

Last edited by ugkbunb (2009-08-10 15:48:27)

dezza

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2007-04-05

Posts: 126

Re: PulseAudio

I only use ALSA and it works great with anything.