Depends On: libpulse

Miblo · 2016-04-21 22:48:08

I've encountered a situation in which removing libpulse will enable a game – Stephen's Sausage Roll – to play audio. I can readily remove lib32-libpulse and so get audio from the 32-bit binary of the game (which I must run from the terminal, rather than from in Steam), but can't remove the 64-bit libpulse because a number of packages (listed below) depend on it. In order to get the game to play audio if launched from Steam (which launches the 64-bit binary, and I don't know how to make it launch the 32-bit one) I must manually move the /usr/lib/libpulse-simple.so files out of the way, which I definitely don't want to do because pacman will lose track of them.

I know that it is the game's (or, specifically in this case, Unity's) responsibility to initialise the audio properly, and actually check to see which audio system is being used, rather than (presumably) which lib is installed, so I'm not asking for advice with that. My question is: Is libpulse actually required by the below packages? Would it not be possible rather for libpulse to be made an optional dependency of them? If so, I could then remove it, and have a clean workaround for Unity's poor audio initialisation code.

Packages on my system depending on libpulse:
chromium ffmpeg ffmpeg2.8 fluidsynth gst-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-good-plugins hydrogen i3status libmikmod mumble musescore simplescreenrecorder speech-dispatcher

ooo · 2016-04-22 00:02:08

What you're asking would mean recompiling those packages, and disabling all pulseaudio support (if possible).

My guess is you'd just have to do it yourself, or try to find an actual fix or better workaround.

ngoonee · 2016-04-22 20:34:27

You're probably trying to solve the wrong problem.

The game isn't playing nice with pulseaudio (and presumably your other apps are), and you want to remove pulseaudio so the game's sound will play. Are you okay with all other sound dying?

If so, just move the files out of the way, why should you worry about pacman 'losing track of them'? it won't break anything. Except your audio for everything besides the game (hence my first question).

Or you could fix the right issue and figure out how to use the game with pulse. Steam audio works just fine here using alsa emulation. Perhaps you just don't have pulseaudio-alsa installed?

Miblo · 2016-04-22 22:13:10

Ah, sorry, I forgot to mention that I use plain ALSA rather than PulseAudio. So on my system nothing goes through PulseAudio anyway, as far as I know. That's really the thinking behind my question: Since on my system the audio of e.g. Hydrogen doesn't go through PulseAudio, does that not mean that PulseAudio-related packages – libpulse, in the case of Hydrogen – are only optionally required by it? Also, I see that jack is another package that Hydrogen depends on, yet Hydrogen plays audio without (and obviously with) it running. So could jack also not be an optional dependency of it?

Apologies if I'm oversimplifying things. I would like to try ooo's suggestion, though, and learn how to use the ABS to make those packages listed above only optionally depend on libpulse, remove libpulse and see what breaks, if anything.

Also, is that true that letting pacman lose track of files won't break anything? I thought doing that could mess up updates and leave you having to keep an eye on them yourself.

Incidentally, I may have a workaround for the Stephen's Sausage Roll bug, although I agree that it needs to be fixed in the actual engine.

Lone_Wolf · 2016-04-23 16:09:32

Miblo,i think you'll find this interesting: http://archlinux.2023198.n4.nabble.com/ … l#a4668473

(if you prefer the original messages: https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/a … 18375.html )

ngoonee · 2016-04-23 19:38:36

Miblo wrote:

Ah, sorry, I forgot to mention that I use plain ALSA rather than PulseAudio. So on my system nothing goes through PulseAudio anyway, as far as I know. That's really the thinking behind my question: Since on my system the audio of e.g. Hydrogen doesn't go through PulseAudio, does that not mean that PulseAudio-related packages – libpulse, in the case of Hydrogen – are only optionally required by it? Also, I see that jack is another package that Hydrogen depends on, yet Hydrogen plays audio without (and obviously with) it running. So could jack also not be an optional dependency of it?
Apologies if I'm oversimplifying things. I would like to try ooo's suggestion, though, and learn how to use the ABS to make those packages listed above only optionally depend on libpulse, remove libpulse and see what breaks, if anything.
Also, is that true that letting pacman lose track of files won't break anything? I thought doing that could mess up updates and leave you having to keep an eye on them yourself.
Incidentally, I may have a workaround for the Stephen's Sausage Roll bug, although I agree that it needs to be fixed in the actual engine.

Lone_Wolf's link explains it, but I recommend you use PulseAudio rather than ALSA, at this point the majority of users won't see any benefit (and WILL experience oddities such as you yourself have) to avoiding PulseAudio.

Hydrogen is very specifically an audio tool, and hence supports a variety of outputs (configurable). Similar for mpd, for example. Your game isn't, and hence the engine just tries to auto-detect what it should use. In your case it doesn't work because even though you have pulseaudio you don't use it.

Check out pulseaudio-fake (AUR), it may help you 'really' not have pulseaudio (not sure, I have not used it).

Arch Linux

#1 2016-04-21 22:48:08

Depends On: libpulse

#2 2016-04-22 00:02:08

Re: Depends On: libpulse

#3 2016-04-22 20:34:27

Re: Depends On: libpulse

#4 2016-04-22 22:13:10

Re: Depends On: libpulse

#5 2016-04-23 16:09:32

Re: Depends On: libpulse

#6 2016-04-23 19:38:36

Re: Depends On: libpulse

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