PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

tavianator · 2010-02-16 06:43:06

GogglesGuy wrote:

ngoonee wrote:
habbe wrote:
Also MPD does not understand pulseaudio (nor jack) out of the box, which is irritating and pointless IMO.
If you compile MPD with pulse/jack support in a binary-distribution like Arch, you FORCE everyone who uses MPD to have both pulse and jack installed. Most of whom would not want that.
You can make that argument for any external dependency that mpd requires.

No you can't; MPD still works without pulse/jack support compiled in, for 99% of people. I don't think any of the current dependencies can be sacrificed and still leave you with a working MPD.

jordi · 2010-02-16 18:29:27

I am pretty sure that mpd would work, for example, without avahi.

Anyway. If the optdepends way was possible, I would really like to see that.

Last edited by jordi (2010-02-16 18:30:31)

ngoonee · 2010-02-17 05:37:23

habbe wrote:

ngoonee wrote:
habbe wrote:
Also MPD does not understand pulseaudio (nor jack) out of the box, which is irritating and pointless IMO.
If you compile MPD with pulse/jack support in a binary-distribution like Arch, you FORCE everyone who uses MPD to have both pulse and jack installed. Most of whom would not want that.
I don't understand how it is FORCED. That just seems stupid coding, but I'm not an expert.
We really need a common solution for audio, this is just delaying things.

Try installing mpd with pulse enabled, force uninstall pulse, set mpd to output to alsa (no mention of pulse in the conf file), and watch it fail.

An academic calls it stupid coding, because he doesn't have to do the work, especially not for free. Its simplest FOR THE PROGRAMMER, and that's what the programmer cares about, most of the time.

And you'll never really have a 'common solution' for anything in Linux, choice is the whole point for most people. Which is why you have systems without X, as well as systems without HAL, without dbus, without nvidia binaries or other closed firmwares, without gnome/KDE...

habbe · 2010-02-17 09:32:09

ngoonee wrote:

Try installing mpd with pulse enabled, force uninstall pulse, set mpd to output to alsa (no mention of pulse in the conf file), and watch it fail.
An academic calls it stupid coding, because he doesn't have to do the work, especially not for free. Its simplest FOR THE PROGRAMMER, and that's what the programmer cares about, most of the time.
And you'll never really have a 'common solution' for anything in Linux, choice is the whole point for most people. Which is why you have systems without X, as well as systems without HAL, without dbus, without nvidia binaries or other closed firmwares, without gnome/KDE...

Ok, I understand people don't have the time to write good programs, I wish I had the time and the skill.

Also it is true that in Linux there is freedom. However, if I was to write a music player for Linux, I would make sure everybody, especially audio enthusiasts, would be able to use it. This is not happening with mpd in Arch.

(I know recompiling is easy, but I won't do it anymore, it is working around the problem, not fixing it)

djselbeck · 2010-02-17 12:04:51

habbe wrote:

Ok, I understand people don't have the time to write good programs, I wish I had the time and the skill.
Also it is true that in Linux there is freedom. However, if I was to write a music player for Linux, I would make sure everybody, especially audio enthusiasts, would be able to use it. This is not happening with mpd in Arch.
(I know recompiling is easy, but I won't do it anymore, it is working around the problem, not fixing it)

Yeah! True Word!! I fully understand this.

Ramses de Norre · 2010-02-17 12:19:04

habbe wrote:

ngoonee wrote:
Try installing mpd with pulse enabled, force uninstall pulse, set mpd to output to alsa (no mention of pulse in the conf file), and watch it fail.
An academic calls it stupid coding, because he doesn't have to do the work, especially not for free. Its simplest FOR THE PROGRAMMER, and that's what the programmer cares about, most of the time.
And you'll never really have a 'common solution' for anything in Linux, choice is the whole point for most people. Which is why you have systems without X, as well as systems without HAL, without dbus, without nvidia binaries or other closed firmwares, without gnome/KDE...
Ok, I understand people don't have the time to write good programs, I wish I had the time and the skill.
Also it is true that in Linux there is freedom. However, if I was to write a music player for Linux, I would make sure everybody, especially audio enthusiasts, would be able to use it. This is not happening with mpd in Arch.

I think it is easy to say that you _would_ do so. If you'd try to code such an application, you'll notice how awfully difficult and time-consuming it is to do it just right.

ngoonee · 2010-02-18 04:19:18

habbe wrote:

ngoonee wrote:
Try installing mpd with pulse enabled, force uninstall pulse, set mpd to output to alsa (no mention of pulse in the conf file), and watch it fail.
An academic calls it stupid coding, because he doesn't have to do the work, especially not for free. Its simplest FOR THE PROGRAMMER, and that's what the programmer cares about, most of the time.
And you'll never really have a 'common solution' for anything in Linux, choice is the whole point for most people. Which is why you have systems without X, as well as systems without HAL, without dbus, without nvidia binaries or other closed firmwares, without gnome/KDE...
Ok, I understand people don't have the time to write good programs, I wish I had the time and the skill.
Also it is true that in Linux there is freedom. However, if I was to write a music player for Linux, I would make sure everybody, especially audio enthusiasts, would be able to use it. This is not happening with mpd in Arch.
(I know recompiling is easy, but I won't do it anymore, it is working around the problem, not fixing it)

Waaahhhh, the kid writing my favourite music player isn't spending an additional few days catering to my demands.

Seriously, get over yourself.

habbe · 2010-02-18 10:13:07

ngoonee wrote:

Waaahhhh, the kid writing my favourite music player isn't spending an additional few days catering to my demands.
Seriously, get over yourself.

I'm just giving advice and trying to improve Linux audio.

This thread was about pulseaudio, and how there are important programs in Arch repos that do not support it out of the box. Arch is still fine, because the great majority is not using pulseaudio (I'd think?). The common attitude seems to be to not use pulseaudio and this is regressive. Pulseaudio isn't even enough, the only way to use firewire-audio-devices is to use jack, and there we have another program that the great majority do not wan't to touch. It would really benefit the whole community to have a common solution.

Now if you are serious about audio, chances are that you have a fw-device with high quality DA-transformers. At least if you do any recordings, you'll probably have a fw-device.

This means that to get the functionality that is given in Windows XP since god knows when, that is to have all the sounds coming through your fw-card, in Linux you have to use jack and pulseaudio. Well, jack should be enough, but to have flash output to jack we need pulseaudio (I know this is not controlled by OSS community). Imagine that, how difficult it all is.

Now someone suggests Ubuntustudio or some other distro that specializes to audio, but they just won't cut it - they have old versions of the programs, they also have to be recompiled etc. Arch would be perfect right now because it is rolling-release and many of the audio-programs are developing fast. And yes, I know about archaudio, maybe they should add music players to their server, with at least jack enabled. Then again are we really going to have separate distros for audio enthusiasts till the end of time?

Anikom15 · 2010-02-18 23:48:14

Just shutup and go fix it. Geez.

GogglesGuy · 2010-02-19 00:59:24

ngoonee wrote:

habbe wrote:
ngoonee wrote:
If you compile MPD with pulse/jack support in a binary-distribution like Arch, you FORCE everyone who uses MPD to have both pulse and jack installed. Most of whom would not want that.
I don't understand how it is FORCED. That just seems stupid coding, but I'm not an expert.
We really need a common solution for audio, this is just delaying things.
Try installing mpd with pulse enabled, force uninstall pulse, set mpd to output to alsa (no mention of pulse in the conf file), and watch it fail.

Don't uninstall pulse then. Disk space is cheap.

If you don't like it that MPD requires all possible sound output systems to be compiled into its executable, then fix it in MPD, not in <insert your favorite linux distribution>. Don't force everybody else to have no choice.

milomouse · 2010-02-19 01:17:04

Say yes.. to ABS. Seriously, I think Arch's mpd package has a pretty sane configuration. Keep things simple and don't have it install all forms of audio output. For one, I don't think pulseaudio is the "standard", neither is OSS, which is why I compiled my own. Again, this is what ABS is for and there's plenty of AUR pkgbuilds if you're too lazy to configure it yourself. I think this 'system' works rather well, especially (for example) for those mpd users who consider themselves true audio enthusiasts-- I mean, doesn't that kind of imply that you're willing to work with/configure audio components? Makes sense that you'd hand-pick your mpd options, IMHO..

Edit: of course this isn't only about mpd.. but I think the argument still stands. Not that we're arguing.

Last edited by milomouse (2010-02-19 01:21:10)

ngoonee · 2010-02-19 09:30:04

habbe wrote:

ngoonee wrote:
Waaahhhh, the kid writing my favourite music player isn't spending an additional few days catering to my demands.
Seriously, get over yourself.
I'm just giving advice and trying to improve Linux audio.

Really? And who would you be advising? Some random Arch users who don't have anything to do with the development of the software you're talking about? Go post on the jack-devel or pulseaudio MLs. I'd suggest not using the line "I understand people don't have the time to write good programs" though, if you want any sort of positive response.

For the record, recompiling your sound apps to support pulse and/or JACK natively is dirt simple with Arch. That's one of its plus points. Ranting that the backends should be redesigned to support multiple audio sub-systems even when they don't happen to be installed is something you should do somewhere else besides the forum of a distro where you 'do-it-yourself'.

habbe · 2010-02-19 11:01:54

This is a discussion forum... What should we do here? Of course one needs to contact developers directly, that is the best way.

I agree with GogglesGuy by the way, and as I've understood he's one of those devs. Goggles is maybe the best player, I don't have to recompile anything. The tray-icon is now fixed, thank you

milomouse: point taken, but I prefer better programs instead of forcing everyone to recompile or to do some other extra work

EDIT: reading back the thread, I understand that Arch would need more devs to push pulseaudio forward, so I understand that. I guess I have to start learning C and C++ again
(although it won't really help that very few are using it...)

Last edited by habbe (2010-02-19 11:50:17)

JGC · 2010-02-20 01:05:57

The problem with pulseaudio is that if you want to do it good, you have to force it down your throat. Whenever you compile pulseaudio support in let's say GNOME mixer applets, you're forcing the user to install and setup pulseaudio, or else there won't be any mixer controls.

Archlinux is about having choice, pulseaudio doesn't fit in there. We give you the choice to set it up yourself.

ngoonee · 2010-02-20 01:12:13

JGC wrote:

The problem with pulseaudio is that if you want to do it good, you have to force it down your throat. Whenever you compile pulseaudio support in let's say GNOME mixer applets, you're forcing the user to install and setup pulseaudio, or else there won't be any mixer controls.
Archlinux is about having choice, pulseaudio doesn't fit in there. We give you the choice to set it up yourself.

Oh, hi, JGC, nice to see you drop by here. Can I take that to mean pulse won't be integrated in GNOME in the near future, since they're your packages and all?

I use pulse myself, but I do understand the big headache with regards to that, so am fine doing it myself. May eventually recompile some parts of Gnome and offer in AUR for that purpose.

R00KIE · 2010-02-20 16:56:45

JGC wrote:

The problem with pulseaudio is that if you want to do it good, you have to force it down your throat. Whenever you compile pulseaudio support in let's say GNOME mixer applets, you're forcing the user to install and setup pulseaudio, or else there won't be any mixer controls.
Archlinux is about having choice, pulseaudio doesn't fit in there. We give you the choice to set it up yourself.

Thats unfortunate (I don't use gnome though) I guess making gnome and other apps work fine when compiled with pulse support when pulse is not installed in the system is just a drop of water in an ocean of other things to do, so I understand that it is a low priority task and I can guess how much additional work it takes to code it "right".

Luckly these days I just have to recompile vlc and mplayer to get native pulse support, so not much of a nuisance as long as there aren't many updates in a short time period.

descendent87 · 2010-02-20 22:47:36

I think the way Arch handles pulseaudio is great, I use OSS so want to avoid pulseaudio but if you want it you just need to recompile a few packages using ABS Whereas distro's like ubuntu come with pulse installed and setup so trying to remove it completely to use OSS is a nightmare

djselbeck · 2010-02-20 23:39:37

It is a nightmare for me on Archlinux to compile Pulseaudio support, too. You mean a few packages? Ok here is a bit of my list: mythtv,xbmc,mplayer,xine-lib,gnome-media,gnome-applets,phonon,sdl,wine,gnome-settings-daemon,fluidsynth and so on. And this is also on a netbook because I have a desktop with amd64 and netbook is i686.

Last edited by djselbeck (2010-02-20 23:41:02)

descendent87 · 2010-02-20 23:57:04

Any reason you need pulseaudio on the netbook? (just out of curiousity what feature you need that OSS or ALSA don't provide)

raf_kig · 2010-02-21 01:30:30

Hm I'm in a similar situation, so :-)

Remote sinks ... It's just awesome to turn on some music and have it played synchronized simultaneously in every room.
Or just going to the kitchen and switching the audio from the laptop built-in crap to the speakers there, on the fly.
Or just moving that phone call to your bluetooth headset with one click...

Alsa alone or OSS just can't compare to that...
don't get me started on OSS not being able to suspend while playing audio - wtf ... this is not 1995

/e btw removing pulse from ubuntu is (imo) less trouble than adding pulse to arch

Last edited by raf_kig (2010-02-21 01:33:07)

Allan · 2010-02-21 01:38:32

Well, why doesn't someone start a community project to maintain a repo with packages all compiled with pulse support? It seems there are enough people to help out.

R00KIE · 2010-02-21 15:23:49

raf_kig wrote:

Hm I'm in a similar situation, so :-)
Remote sinks ... It's just awesome to turn on some music and have it played synchronized simultaneously in every room.
Or just going to the kitchen and switching the audio from the laptop built-in crap to the speakers there, on the fly.
Or just moving that phone call to your bluetooth headset with one click...

Do you have a setup like that (the kitchen part that is)? If yes then thats really cool if not thats just like seller talk about a possible usage case, and you have to agree that most people will never use that remote sink feature.

However changing from the built-in sound card of my laptop to an usb headset is a feature I use and find quite useful, also the possibility of easily recording from any output monitor is quite handy.

An advantage of pulse over alsa is a more decent alas more cpu hungry software mixing, but having used both OSSv4 and alsa+pulse I still find the OSSv4 implementation better.

raf_kig wrote:

Alsa alone or OSS just can't compare to that...
don't get me started on OSS not being able to suspend while playing audio - wtf ... this is not 1995

Yeah .... right, have you ever tried to suspend while using oss, and I mean OSSv4 which is what we should be talking about here. First you have to kill _all_ apps using sound, stop the server and then suspend, not the most elegant solution I might say.

raf_kig wrote:

btw removing pulse from ubuntu is (imo) less trouble than adding pulse to arch

I don't know about ubuntu because I don't use it but at first glance it seems harder to remove pulse from ubuntu, which is hardwired to depend on pulse, than to add pulse to arch.

Just do 'pacman -S pulseaudio', add a few lines to /etc/asound.conf (which you can copy/paste from the wiki) and you're good to go, try to explain all the steps to remove pulse from ubuntu and install OSSv4 and you get a post larger than my already large post, not to mention all sort of apps that will start to explode because pulse's libs can no longer be found.

Arch is meant for advanced users and users that aren't afraid to get their hands dirty, if something doesn't seem right then ask why, most probably it has a good reason, if not, submit bug reports, or even better, submit patches, if you like me don't know enough to code and submit patches then just do what everyone else does, use ABS or the AUR, it's not that hard .

djselbeck · 2010-02-21 15:40:25

running pacman -S pulseaudio is just not everything. Because I don't want to use the alsa output to pulseaudio plugin. I want to use the native pulseaudio support which is much better because of latency and volumecontrol in gnome for example. And I can say that the case above is not just a usecase. I have the samething running here. Another cool thing of PA is hotplug support for USB Devices without even stopping a running audiostream.

raf_kig · 2010-02-21 17:14:54

R00KIE wrote:

Do you have a setup like that (the kitchen part that is)? If yes then thats really cool

Yes I do :-)

R00KIE wrote:

Just do 'pacman -S pulseaudio', add a few lines to /etc/asound.conf (which you can copy/paste from the wiki) and you're good to go, try to explain all the steps to remove pulse from ubuntu and install OSSv4 and you get a post larger than my already large post, not to mention all sort of apps that will start to explode because pulse's libs can no longer be found.

Unfortunately it isn't done with that alone - you'll have to recompile a whole bunch of applications to get native pulse audio support everywhere.

R00KIE wrote:

submit patches, if you like me don't know enough to code and submit patches then just do what everyone else does, use ABS or the AUR, it's not that hard .

I might - but right now I'm still figuring out how a decent arch - pulse setup might look like (have only been using it for a rather short time).

wonder · 2010-02-21 17:25:12

djselbeck wrote:

running pacman -S pulseaudio is just not everything. Because I don't want to use the alsa output to pulseaudio plugin. I want to use the native pulseaudio support which is much better because of latency and volumecontrol in gnome for example. And I can say that the case above is not just a usecase. I have the samething running here. Another cool thing of PA is hotplug support for USB Devices without even stopping a running audiostream.

i still can't believe you are running pulseaudio natively since pulseaudio doesn't talk directly to kernel since it doesn't have a clue about modules/drivers for sound cards. but this is another discussion.

Arch Linux

#26 2010-02-16 06:43:06

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#27 2010-02-16 18:29:27

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#28 2010-02-17 05:37:23

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#29 2010-02-17 09:32:09

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#30 2010-02-17 12:04:51

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#31 2010-02-17 12:19:04

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#32 2010-02-18 04:19:18

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#33 2010-02-18 10:13:07

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#34 2010-02-18 23:48:14

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#35 2010-02-19 00:59:24

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#36 2010-02-19 01:17:04

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#37 2010-02-19 09:30:04

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#38 2010-02-19 11:01:54

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#39 2010-02-20 01:05:57

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#40 2010-02-20 01:12:13

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#41 2010-02-20 16:56:45

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#42 2010-02-20 22:47:36

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#43 2010-02-20 23:39:37

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#44 2010-02-20 23:57:04

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#45 2010-02-21 01:30:30

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#46 2010-02-21 01:38:32

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#47 2010-02-21 15:23:49

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#48 2010-02-21 15:40:25

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#49 2010-02-21 17:14:54

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

#50 2010-02-21 17:25:12

Re: PULSEAUDIO Boycott?

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