pulseaudio over network

corevisual · 2010-06-12 21:47:23

Okay, I've fought with pulseaudio plenty of times, and usually it seems like a little bit of luck eventually gets things working in my typical local speaker environment. But I'm completely stuck in my current situation, attempting to get a new client machine to share a server's speakers over my home network.

First off, is there a better way than pulse? I don't want to just pipe an application, I want the speakerless client to output everything over the server's sound system. Isn't this common?

If pulse is indeed the only answer, can anybody point me toward a current example of getting a networked configuration working from scratch? The pulseaudio section of the arch wiki has certainly helped in the past, but noting that it still seems to rely on padevchooser (deprecated) and references system-wide daemon (frowned upon) I'm not particularly encouraged that it's taking me in the right direction any more. Avahi seems to be part of this as well. It seems like every discussion of modules/config I find on the web contradicts the previous.

Maybe frustration is blinding me at this point -- can anyone point me in the right direction? Simplest case: one machine playing all its sound over another machine's speakers (edit to add: that machine still needs to use them too). Up to date Arch 64-bit on both, no DE's.

Thanks in advance for anything!

Last edited by corevisual (2010-06-12 22:19:12)

ngoonee · 2010-06-13 11:39:45

Honestly, you'd be better off asking on the Pulseaudio mailing list, or checking its own wiki. Not many Archers use Pulse, some consider it heresy . I use it extensively, but not in the networked context, as far as I understand you just need to tell your local pulseaudio daemon the IP of the target pulseaudio daemon (which will play the sound) and copy a cookie over.

corevisual · 2010-06-13 15:34:33

I hear you, I'd be among the haters too if it weren't for the fact that it has several features that I require, and once it's working, it goes out of sight and mind and does seem to work.

I've done the cookie thing, the no-authorization thing, the explicit module stuff, set the ip, and of course network goo like hosts.allow, etc. The annoying thing is that at this point I have absolutely nothing to go on -- it simply doesn't show the network sink. Nothing in logs on either end, just pure absence. Both machines work locally, but no indication of network.

I have a feeling it's something simple, and it's just my latent annoyance getting in my way. What I really don't understand -- isn't this a common need? Even the "windows 7 was my idea" wankers do it, don't they?

Just realized I wasn't logging with -vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv, maybe that'll show me something.

Last edited by corevisual (2010-06-13 15:53:31)

ngoonee · 2010-06-13 16:04:58

I don't see this explicitly mentioned in your first post or this one, but did you check the Pulseaudio wiki?

http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/FAQ#HowdoIus … thenetwork

corevisual · 2010-06-13 16:40:28

Yeah, I had used their wiki too -- in fact, that might have been part of the problem.

Verbose logging did indeed help, and I found when running pulseaudio at both ends in console (yeah I know shoulda done that earlier) that it actually worked! The daemon config on the server apparently wasn't registering the avahi service, so I think I had a partial config via daemon and a paprefs-assisted config when executed explicitly. I'm writing this before I've actually figured out the issue, but considering I actually saw it work once, I'm sure I can track it down from here. It probably was indeed simple. I won't mark this [solved] until I surround it though.

Thanks!

Themaister · 2010-06-13 16:44:53

If you're willing to try something else than pulse, you could try RSound (shameless plug ). It should fit in your situation.

It has a plugin for ALSA, so you can set rsound as default output, and be good to go.
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=34028 - rsound-git
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=35527 - alsa-plugins-rsound-git

Install rsound-git on both.
Install alsa-plugins-rsound-git on the computer you'd want to send sound from.

Start the server:

rsd -D

It uses alsa as default output, but the server supports OSS, PortAudio, OpenAL, etc ...

Set as default alsa output in .asoundrc or similar on the computer you want to send audio from:

pcm.!default {
   type rsound
   host "where-to-send-the-audio"
}

EDIT: Oh, you got it working

Last edited by Themaister (2010-06-13 16:46:39)

corevisual · 2010-06-13 16:57:59

Actually, that may be superior for this particular need, Themaister!

I need pulse in other situations on other machines, but this case was actually bothering me a little anyway because this particular server is also a MythTV backend. I was worried that my next step of migrating Myth to pulse from alsa was going to present even more fresh hell, considering how little respect they have for pulse.

I'm going to see if I can get this fully functional with pulse since I'm so close, but I have a feeling I will then uninstall it and try your RSound. Thank you!

Last edited by corevisual (2010-06-13 16:58:58)

ngoonee · 2010-06-13 22:43:40

mythTV is one of the few apps left that actively hates Pulseaudio, so you should try something else.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-06-12 21:47:23

pulseaudio over network

#2 2010-06-13 11:39:45

Re: pulseaudio over network

#3 2010-06-13 15:34:33

Re: pulseaudio over network

#4 2010-06-13 16:04:58

Re: pulseaudio over network

#5 2010-06-13 16:40:28

Re: pulseaudio over network

#6 2010-06-13 16:44:53

Re: pulseaudio over network

#7 2010-06-13 16:57:59

Re: pulseaudio over network

#8 2010-06-13 22:43:40

Re: pulseaudio over network

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