Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[David Henningsson]

On 07/29/2013 04:06 PM, Len Ovens wrote:
> 
> On Sun, July 28, 2013 10:34 pm, Jarno Suni wrote:
>> 2013/7/29 Len Ovens 
>>
>>>
>>> Interesting... I did some testing. Turning pulse off in the session
>>> start
>>> up does not keep it from starting. Second, The pulse configuration does
>>> not stay where it is put. Plugging in headphones takes a HW device that
>>> is
>>> turned off turns it on in pulse (I think this is a bug). Anything at all
>>> that tries to communicate with pulse using dbus starts pulse even if it
>>> is
>>> turned off. While pulse has a device turned off, you are right the alsa
>>> mixer works as intended.
>>>
>>>
>> So did you do the "autospawn = no" trick told in the original post?
> 
> Autospawn = no would be ineffective. dbus gets in the way. For example if
> you plug in a new USB interface or even plug headphones in, ubuntu is set
> up to tell pulse via dbus of these changes so that pulse can change the
> levels correctly. Dbus will autostart any application it is trying to talk
> to if it is not running. 

This is wrong.

PulseAudio, when it is already running, monitors udev/uevents to know
when new sound cards have appeared.

That's all. There is nothing trying to start PulseAudio when a new card
is plugged in. And PulseAudio is never started as a request from dBus.

PulseAudio will be autospawned if a client tries to access it, and this
can be prohibited with autospawn = no.

In some older releases PulseAudio was also started in the
start-pulseaudio-x11 script (which is executed on X login, through
/etc/xdg/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop), but this is now removed - I
don't remember which release.
Looking at 12.04, all start-pulseaudio-x11 has got is pactl commands,
(which would just output errors if pulseaudio isn't running and
autospawn=no).

> The only way to keep pulse from starting is to
> remove the x bit from the file name. 

I would strongly recommend against this technique, because if you want
pulseaudio to be running again and you forgot how you disabled it, it
will be quite difficult to find.

> I will try it anyway just to be sure,
> pulse would have to look at who was starting it and decide not to start if
> it's parent was dbus. That doesn't make sense as dbus is the normal way of
> starting pulse. A device profile that tells pulse to do software levels
> only (as it does with jack or other multi-track cards like the ice1712)
> would probably work better.


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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Len Ovens]

On Sun, July 28, 2013 10:34 pm, Jarno Suni wrote:
> 2013/7/29 Len Ovens 
>
>>
>> Interesting... I did some testing. Turning pulse off in the session
>> start
>> up does not keep it from starting. Second, The pulse configuration does
>> not stay where it is put. Plugging in headphones takes a HW device that
>> is
>> turned off turns it on in pulse (I think this is a bug). Anything at all
>> that tries to communicate with pulse using dbus starts pulse even if it
>> is
>> turned off. While pulse has a device turned off, you are right the alsa
>> mixer works as intended.
>>
>>
> So did you do the "autospawn = no" trick told in the original post?

Autospawn = no would be ineffective. dbus gets in the way. For example if
you plug in a new USB interface or even plug headphones in, ubuntu is set
up to tell pulse via dbus of these changes so that pulse can change the
levels correctly. Dbus will autostart any application it is trying to talk
to if it is not running. The only way to keep pulse from starting is to
remove the x bit from the file name. I will try it anyway just to be sure,
pulse would have to look at who was starting it and decide not to start if
it's parent was dbus. That doesn't make sense as dbus is the normal way of
starting pulse. A device profile that tells pulse to do software levels
only (as it does with jack or other multi-track cards like the ice1712)
would probably work better.


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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[lukefromdc]

Depends on hardware and purpose. I run bare alsa in my machines for utter 
maximum performance, no issues on desktops but laptop has to start JACK
to play any mono audio, as there is no mono channel on its soundcard.

If I were to send a copy of that netbook to an ordinary user, I would install
Pulseaudio and sacrifice 720p video playback. I originally removed it from
the desktop because 4 core Phenoms had issues with AVCHD with it, I 
doubt my 8-core AMD bulldozer box would be bothered. 

On 07/29/2013 at 2:05 AM, "Ralf Mardorf"  wrote:
>
>On Sun, 2013-07-28 at 20:11 -0700, Len Ovens wrote:
>> Disabling PA is not an optimal solution either.
>
>That's why I always remove pulse audio for e.g. Ubuntu, resp. don't
>install it for Arch.
>
>> The reality is that pulse is the most seamless method of using 
>most
>> desktop applications.
>
>Just using ALSA does work good for me.
>
>Regards,
>Ralf
>
>
>
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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sun, 2013-07-28 at 20:11 -0700, Len Ovens wrote:
> Disabling PA is not an optimal solution either.

That's why I always remove pulse audio for e.g. Ubuntu, resp. don't
install it for Arch.

> The reality is that pulse is the most seamless method of using most
> desktop applications.

Just using ALSA does work good for me.

Regards,
Ralf



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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Jarno Suni]

2013/7/29 Len Ovens 

>
> Interesting... I did some testing. Turning pulse off in the session start
> up does not keep it from starting. Second, The pulse configuration does
> not stay where it is put. Plugging in headphones takes a HW device that is
> turned off turns it on in pulse (I think this is a bug). Anything at all
> that tries to communicate with pulse using dbus starts pulse even if it is
> turned off. While pulse has a device turned off, you are right the alsa
> mixer works as intended.
>
>
So did you do the "autospawn = no" trick told in the original post?

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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Len Ovens]

On Sun, July 28, 2013 1:14 pm, Jarno Suni wrote:

> I tried to explain that if you do not run PulseAudio, alsamixer and
> xfce4-mixer plugin work as expected. I have tested it by Intel HDA. As for
> the xfce mixer, there is more about the issue here:
> https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8291

Interesting... I did some testing. Turning pulse off in the session start
up does not keep it from starting. Second, The pulse configuration does
not stay where it is put. Plugging in headphones takes a HW device that is
turned off turns it on in pulse (I think this is a bug). Anything at all
that tries to communicate with pulse using dbus starts pulse even if it is
turned off. While pulse has a device turned off, you are right the alsa
mixer works as intended.

sudo chmod -x /usr/bin/pulseaudio seems to be the only thing that works.
Now I know one more reason not to use hda audio. Disabling PA is not an
optimal solution either. The reality is that pulse is the most seamless
method of using most desktop applications. There are other ways, yes, but
none have any good usability out of the box, they all require fiddling.

My multi track card is not controlled at all by PA. I am not sure why. It
should however, be possible to tell Pulse not to control the card through
configuration...

I am not sure of the best solution. I am thinking one of two ways:
1) unload module-udev-detect and any module-alsa-card. Then run everything
as if jack is the only card. Maybe even run jackdbus at session start.
qjackctl should still be able to stop jackdbus (not jackd) if the user
wishes to change latency or HW.
2) only use PA on a card jack never touches. Use an external cable if
needed to run PA audio to/through jack. (people with FW audio have done
this for ages)

Anyway, getting rid of pulse for some programs that claim to work with
jack (like audacity, that a lot of people use as part of their audio
workflow) and don't really, is painful. Going with alsa is also somewhat
painful. Pulse is what works with a lot of things, it needs to be fixed. A
change in PA config should not change itself and any device should be
settable as SW levels only.


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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Jarno Suni]

2013/7/28 Len Ovens 

>
> On Sun, July 28, 2013 2:32 am, Jarno Suni wrote:
> > When not using Pulseaudio, muting e.g. Master track by alsamixer or a
> > audio
> > mixer plugin for Xfce does not mute several tracks, which is good.
>
> There are some internal cards where muting the headphones, also mutes
> master and the internal speakers... in fact it seems to me muting any one
> of the three mutes all three (Intel HDA). Unfortunately, unmuting only
> unmutes the one channel... which generally means the master is left muted
> when unmuting the the speakers. This is just testing with alsamixer in a
> terminal. The xfcealsamixer does not show mutes, but rather mutes any
> channel when the slider is moved to the lowest level... so if the user
> sets the speaker level to 0 and then raises it there is no sound till they
> go and adjust the master as well. I would call that broken.
>

I tried to explain that if you do not run PulseAudio, alsamixer and
xfce4-mixer plugin work as expected. I have tested it by Intel HDA. As for
the xfce mixer, there is more about the issue here:
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8291

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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Len Ovens]

On Sun, July 28, 2013 2:32 am, Jarno Suni wrote:
> When not using Pulseaudio, muting e.g. Master track by alsamixer or a
> audio
> mixer plugin for Xfce does not mute several tracks, which is good.

There are some internal cards where muting the headphones, also mutes
master and the internal speakers... in fact it seems to me muting any one
of the three mutes all three (Intel HDA). Unfortunately, unmuting only
unmutes the one channel... which generally means the master is left muted
when unmuting the the speakers. This is just testing with alsamixer in a
terminal. The xfcealsamixer does not show mutes, but rather mutes any
channel when the slider is moved to the lowest level... so if the user
sets the speaker level to 0 and then raises it there is no sound till they
go and adjust the master as well. I would call that broken.

Pulse on the other hand, just works. It seems to be the best desktop sound
server around. I have found that just unloading the PA-jack bridge,
disables pulse so it causes no problems. It is trivial to set up Alltray
(or similar) to load and upload module-jackdbus-detect just by clicking on
it's systray icon.

Probably the best setup for professional audio where desktop audio gets
used often, is to disable all audio interfaces in pulse (set them to off).
This will set pavucontrol (or equiv.) to not do anything to the alsa
controls but do everything with sw levels when using the the pa-jack
bridge. Then use qasmixer or even just alsamixer to set levels. This may
mean that plugging in headphones on a laptop does not mute the speakers
BTW ;)

When set up this way, I have found that while PA does use a bit more CPU,
it is not a problem even on my 10 year old + P4. even using low enough
latency for live use such a guitarix. Unloading module-jackdbus-detect
then takes PA's cpu use to almost nothing and I have never had PA
interfere with anything when set up this way.

I would not recommend using PA with one card and jack with another if
module-jackdbus-detect is loaded. It will cause problems. When using
module-jackdbus-detect PA should have _all_ audio HW turned off.



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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Jarno Suni]

When not using Pulseaudio, muting e.g. Master track by alsamixer or a audio
mixer plugin for Xfce does not mute several tracks, which is good.


2013/7/18 Jarno Suni 

>
> 2013/7/17 Jarno Suni 
>
>> As for *Unexpected side effects, *you can use one or more instances of
>> audio mixer plugins on panel to control audio when using Alsa. I can output
>> audio by more than one application at a time even when I disable
>> Pulseaudio. I think I don't have another sound server in use. But yes, I
>> see side effects like unable to play audio by Totem, which issue I still
>> haven't been able to resolve, because I could not find a relevant setting
>> in its (simple) audio preferences.
>>
>>
> Solution for the Totem issue can be found here:
> http://askubuntu.com/a/303740/21005
> I have not yet learnt to write wiki pages, so maybe later...
>
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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Jarno Suni]

2013/7/17 Jarno Suni 

> As for *Unexpected side effects, *you can use one or more instances of
> audio mixer plugins on panel to control audio when using Alsa. I can output
> audio by more than one application at a time even when I disable
> Pulseaudio. I think I don't have another sound server in use. But yes, I
> see side effects like unable to play audio by Totem, which issue I still
> haven't been able to resolve, because I could not find a relevant setting
> in its (simple) audio preferences.
>
>
Solution for the Totem issue can be found here:
http://askubuntu.com/a/303740/21005
I have not yet learnt to write wiki pages, so maybe later...

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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Jarno Suni]

I checked out the section "2. Don’t purge PulseAudio". As for creating a
bug report of the cracking issue mentioned in the original post, I find it
difficult as I have only noticed the issue during playback of one
commercial DVD movie.

As for *Unexpected side effects, *you can use one or more instances of
audio mixer plugins on panel to control audio when using Alsa. I can output
audio by more than one application at a time even when I disable
Pulseaudio. I think I don't have another sound server in use. But yes, I
see side effects like unable to play audio by Totem, which issue I still
haven't been able to resolve, because I could not find a relevant setting
in its (simple) audio preferences.


2013/7/17 David Henningsson 

> On 07/09/2013 06:06 PM, Mike Holstein wrote:
>
>> what if we had a pulse audio developer on this list?
>>
>
> Actually, we do. And I try to fix the more important problems with
> PulseAudio when I have the time to do so. (It's not always easy to know
> which problems are important: which ones only happen to one specific user
> and which ones happen to many, and e g which ones appear to happen to many
> but in fact are 10 different driver fixes instead, and so on.)
>
> Anyway. The original poster asked when ~/.pulse changed to
> ~/.config/pulse, I think this was with PA 3.0 (or possibly PA 2.0) to
> follow the XDG specification better. That should translate to either 12.10
> or 13.04 in Ubuntu terms.
>
> Also, with the above in mind, feel free to read my guide on how I think
> one should disable PulseAudio here:
>
> http://voices.canonical.com/**david.henningsson/2012/07/13/**
> top-five-wrong-ways-to-fix-**your-audio/
>
> (see section "2. Don’t purge PulseAudio")
>
>
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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[David Henningsson]

On 07/17/2013 01:23 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

On Wed, 2013-07-17 at 11:37 +0200, David Henningsson wrote:

It's not always easy to know which problems are important


JFTR:
Lennart Peottering blamed ALSA and the users and ignored all reports,
but instead wrote ridiculing tracts. Pulseaudio became a hard dependency
where a hard dependency isn't needed and this did break audio for many
users.


I'll let that statement stand for you (as I wasn't that involved when 
all of that happened), but Lennart stopped working on PulseAudio more 
than three years ago. Since then, I and many others have fixed a lot of 
bugs, in both PulseAudio and ALSA.


It does not mean PulseAudio or ALSA is perfect, and that I agree with 
all design choices of that software. But at the moment, I think it's the 
best sound server out there for most mainstream use cases, which is why 
we have it enabled by default.


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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Wed, 2013-07-17 at 11:37 +0200, David Henningsson wrote:
> It's not always easy to know which problems are important

JFTR:
Lennart Peottering blamed ALSA and the users and ignored all reports,
but instead wrote ridiculing tracts. Pulseaudio became a hard dependency
where a hard dependency isn't needed and this did break audio for many
users.



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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[David Henningsson]

On 07/09/2013 06:06 PM, Mike Holstein wrote:

what if we had a pulse audio developer on this list?


Actually, we do. And I try to fix the more important problems with 
PulseAudio when I have the time to do so. (It's not always easy to know 
which problems are important: which ones only happen to one specific 
user and which ones happen to many, and e g which ones appear to happen 
to many but in fact are 10 different driver fixes instead, and so on.)


Anyway. The original poster asked when ~/.pulse changed to 
~/.config/pulse, I think this was with PA 3.0 (or possibly PA 2.0) to 
follow the XDG specification better. That should translate to either 
12.10 or 13.04 in Ubuntu terms.


Also, with the above in mind, feel free to read my guide on how I think 
one should disable PulseAudio here:


http://voices.canonical.com/david.henningsson/2012/07/13/top-five-wrong-ways-to-fix-your-audio/ 



(see section "2. Don’t purge PulseAudio")


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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Mike Holstein]

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:24 AM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

> On Tue, 2013-07-09 at 06:37 -0700, Len Ovens wrote:
> > Quite honestly, Linux audio is still pretty messy.
>
> Unfortunately this is true :(. But a lot of this mess is caused by our
> community. 1. Why not working on one sound server that is useful for all
> tasks instead of working on a new sound server again and again? 2. When
> reporting bugs people shouldn't be called names, e.g. when I reported
> the issues I get with my RME HDSPe AIO. The AIO doesn't work correctly
> here, when I warned somebody _not_ to buy this card the coder of the
> driver not only called me names, but also discredited me. Another
> ignorant coder is responsible for pulseaudio, I never had issues with
> this man, since I don't use it and don't report pulseaudio bugs.
>

this is exactly what im talking about, Ralph.. you had an issue with pulse
whenever that was, 4 or 6 years ago, and you dont use it. so, dont comment
on its quality, or call its developers "ignorant" here on this list,
please. what if we had a pulse audio developer on this list? you realize
that is combative? correct? that is likely why you got attacked/discredited
before... more of a "retaliation" than an attack.. anyway, lets stick to
the facts

you, Ralph, are a valuable asset to this community. you are an excellent
and thorough troubleshooter with impeccable attention to detail. you are
also not a pulse audio user. if you have opinions about pulse, or the pulse
community, or the pulse developers, or the volunteers who develop or
support, create pulseaudio, take those comments somewhere where opinions
like that are welcome. maybe a social media outlet? if you want to discuss
the facts of removing pulse and working without pulse, and using a machine
without pulse, i and other users who want to use a system without pulse
consider that valuable information, and it is welcome and encouraged here.

an easy way (at least for now) to try ubuntu without pulseaudio is to use a
lubuntu live CD. they do not ship pulse by default, and it *is* ubuntu with
the same repos and kernel availability and access to packages. one could
install lubuntu and add just what they want from the repos for an audio
studio and have a system without pulse for audio work.

*sample plausible scenario where one would remove pulseaudio and things
would get "better", thus, making one assume pulseaudio is the issue with
the system:

due to hardware/driver support or system resources or configuration,
removing the overhead of having pulse running allows the system audio more
system resources to work properly. this would be similar to removing any
arguably unnecessary processes from a system, making it seem that the thing
you removed is the cause, but its actually the resources being freed up
that seems to "fix" the issue. thus, leading to...

plausible reasons for removing pulse audio:

- i dont want the overhead of pulseaudio running on my system
- i prefer not using pulseaudio at all since all i use is JACK, and im not
interested in the pulse to jack bridge, or pulse audio for any reason

"pulse audio is crap", coming from a user who does *not* use pulse audio,
or anyone else *is* opinion, and should be regarded as such.. thanks



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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 2013-07-09 at 06:37 -0700, Len Ovens wrote:
> Quite honestly, Linux audio is still pretty messy.

Unfortunately this is true :(. But a lot of this mess is caused by our
community. 1. Why not working on one sound server that is useful for all
tasks instead of working on a new sound server again and again? 2. When
reporting bugs people shouldn't be called names, e.g. when I reported
the issues I get with my RME HDSPe AIO. The AIO doesn't work correctly
here, when I warned somebody _not_ to buy this card the coder of the
driver not only called me names, but also discredited me. Another
ignorant coder is responsible for pulseaudio, I never had issues with
this man, since I don't use it and don't report pulseaudio bugs.




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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Len Ovens]

On Tue, July 9, 2013 12:10 am, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

> IMO the claim that pulseaudio is crap isn't an opinion, but an objective
> fact. Even if it shouldn't cause issues after disabling it, the way the
> leveling is one (and often not working) is idiotic. IIRC Fons once said
> something similar to "if an audio engineer would adjust the level in one
> signal chain by several faders at the same time, the engineer would be
> fired for the incompetence".

And one who chooses something that worked like the Intel HDA IF would be
fired too, but that is what Pulse has to work with most of the time and
for whatever reason, Pulse is what most desktop apps work with best. There
is good reason for someone who is just doing audio to have to be able to
deal with desktop apps.

The second point is that while apps that are designed for Pulse can
sometimes work with jack directly... they do not play nice. They auto
connect to channel 1 and 2 outputs no matter if you are using 9 and 10 for
your output (S/PDIF) or worse audacious for example auto connects to all
outputs.

Audacity is still one of the top audio file editors. When setup to use
jack it creates new jack ports every time it is started, with new names.
Then as soon as you hit stop, they all vanish. Reconnecting an app
manually to i/o while it is in pause each time I want to play a track when
I could be working does not sound useful.

Also, when running through jack, pulse only does one level per track and
leaves the alsa levels alone.

In its youth PA had many problems. Seems it just works any more. Seems
pulse supports more HW than alsa does... though not FW, but that is
probably a plus. It's like anything you have to learn your tools. It does
take time to learn to use pulse in a studio situation. There are settings
in pulse that can make it work with jack better too.

There is still no phone application that talks to jack direct. But then I
don't suppose you do radio talk shows either.

Quite honestly, Linux audio is still pretty messy. There is not one
solution that does everything well. Jack, pulse, alsa, etc all have their
problems. The best solution for most people is to use them all for what
each works best at. Having a switch to turn the PA-jack link off at need
does make sense to me.


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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 2013-07-09 at 01:15 -0400, Mike Holstein wrote:


> i can choose to use JACK only, when i have pulse installed.. thats the
> way i use my production machine.. "pulse is crap" is an opinion..
> there is nothing wrong with pulse, and no reason to remove it to use
> JACK without pulse.. nor is there any compelling reason to remove it
> anyway, unless you want to.. in the case that you want to, just remove
> it

We shouldn't discuss this, but simply help the OP. I assume that you're
able to explain what the OP needs to do, to disable pulseaudio while
everything then should use ALSA, since the OP runs into issues after
disabling pulseaudio ;). Why keeping it, when it's not needed ;)?

IMO the claim that pulseaudio is crap isn't an opinion, but an objective
fact. Even if it shouldn't cause issues after disabling it, the way the
leveling is one (and often not working) is idiotic. IIRC Fons once said
something similar to "if an audio engineer would adjust the level in one
signal chain by several faders at the same time, the engineer would be
fired for the incompetence".



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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Mike Holstein]

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 1:10 AM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

> On Mon, 2013-07-08 at 13:33 -0400, lukefro...@hushmail.com wrote:
> > In some cases Totem and some other GNOME applications require
> afirmatively
> > setting Gstreamer preferences to use ALSA. I have forgotten exactly how
> that's
> > done (did it so long ago) and suspect it has changed since the days of
> Lucid.
>
> May I recommend jackd as sound server?
> http://jackaudio.org/gstreamer_via_jack
>
> IMO jackd is what musicians and audio engineers need. I know music isn't
> the focus of Ubuntu Studio, I anyway wounder that a distro were "studio"
> is for photo, drawing etc. + music and audio engineering, does ship with
> pulseaudio.
>
> Pulseaudio was crap, is crap and I guess it will be crap.
>
> Using ALSA directly is ok, something I'm doing myself, when I don't
> produce music, but IMO most important is that apps can be used with
> jackd.
>

i can choose to use JACK only, when i have pulse installed.. thats the way
i use my production machine.. "pulse is crap" is an opinion.. there is
nothing wrong with pulse, and no reason to remove it to use JACK without
pulse.. nor is there any compelling reason to remove it anyway, unless you
want to.. in the case that you want to, just remove it


>
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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 2013-07-08 at 13:33 -0400, lukefro...@hushmail.com wrote:
> In some cases Totem and some other GNOME applications require afirmatively
> setting Gstreamer preferences to use ALSA. I have forgotten exactly how 
> that's 
> done (did it so long ago) and suspect it has changed since the days of Lucid.

May I recommend jackd as sound server?
http://jackaudio.org/gstreamer_via_jack

IMO jackd is what musicians and audio engineers need. I know music isn't
the focus of Ubuntu Studio, I anyway wounder that a distro were "studio"
is for photo, drawing etc. + music and audio engineering, does ship with
pulseaudio.

Pulseaudio was crap, is crap and I guess it will be crap.

Using ALSA directly is ok, something I'm doing myself, when I don't
produce music, but IMO most important is that apps can be used with
jackd.


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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Mike Holstein]

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 12:59 AM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, 2013-07-08 at 19:16 +0300, Jarno Suni wrote:
> > Just noticed disabling pulseaudio has some side effects such as totem
> > unable to play back and possible you have to change preferences in
> > other applications. Does anyone have more comprehensive view on what
> > else should be changed?
>
> Simply remove pulseaudio. If something should depend on it, then
> recompile it without pulseaudio dependency or build an empty dummy
> package that fakes to provide pulseaudio, using
> http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-helpers.en.html .
> Pulseaudio never worked for me and without pulseaudio I never got
> issues.
>
>
pulse works fine for me.. i have had issues with pulse, and with alsa only,
depending on what hardware i have... there is no reason to remove pulse,
but remove it and decide for yourself..

holstein



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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 2013-07-08 at 19:16 +0300, Jarno Suni wrote:
> Just noticed disabling pulseaudio has some side effects such as totem
> unable to play back and possible you have to change preferences in
> other applications. Does anyone have more comprehensive view on what
> else should be changed?

Simply remove pulseaudio. If something should depend on it, then
recompile it without pulseaudio dependency or build an empty dummy
package that fakes to provide pulseaudio, using
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-helpers.en.html .
Pulseaudio never worked for me and without pulseaudio I never got
issues.



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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[lukefromdc]

In some cases Totem and some other GNOME applications require afirmatively
setting Gstreamer preferences to use ALSA. I have forgotten exactly how that's 
done (did it so long ago) and suspect it has changed since the days of Lucid.

On 07/08/2013 at 12:21 PM, "Kaj Ailomaa"  wrote:
>
>On Mon, Jul 8, 2013, at 06:16 PM, Jarno Suni wrote:
>
>> 
>> So some sub-page for
>> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/HowTos then?
>> Just noticed disabling pulseaudio has some side effects such as 
>totem
>> unable to play back and possible you have to change preferences 
>in other
>> applications. Does anyone have more comprehensive view on what 
>else
>> should
>> be changed?
>
>To be pedantic :)
>If you have a look at the other pages, you'll notice that some are 
>not
>even subpages to http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio.
>Disabling pulseaudio is not Ubuntu Studio specific either, so you 
>could
>just create a general wiki page, but add the page link to
>https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/HowTos. 
>So, the HowTos page is more like a page with links that somehow 
>relate
>to Ubuntu Studio. 
>
>But, you can't make mistakes either. If it works, it works :)
>
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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Jarno Suni]

2013/7/6 Kaj Ailomaa 

>
> Currently, the "structure" is more or less structured by me - I
> reorganized the wiki last year, and put stuff in order :). Both wikis
> actually;
> http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio
> http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio
>
> (note the header/menu that exists on both wikis, which allows for an
> easy oversight of all Ubuntu Studio resources)
>
> The User Guide is meant for the web site ultimately, but the help wiki
> is a great place for developing it. The backbone that exists there is
> just a sketch - one which could be redone if someone wants to do that.
>
> I think this page is terrific for adding anything random that has
> anything to do with Ubuntu Studio, like how to disable pulseaudio
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/HowTos.
> Articles don't need to be well written, or anything. More like a notepad
> for useful tips.
>
>
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So some sub-page for
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/HowTos then?
Just noticed disabling pulseaudio has some side effects such as totem
unable to play back and possible you have to change preferences in other
applications. Does anyone have more comprehensive view on what else should
be changed?

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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Kaj Ailomaa]

On Mon, Jul 8, 2013, at 06:16 PM, Jarno Suni wrote:

> 
> So some sub-page for
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/HowTos then?
> Just noticed disabling pulseaudio has some side effects such as totem
> unable to play back and possible you have to change preferences in other
> applications. Does anyone have more comprehensive view on what else
> should
> be changed?

To be pedantic :)
If you have a look at the other pages, you'll notice that some are not
even subpages to http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio.
Disabling pulseaudio is not Ubuntu Studio specific either, so you could
just create a general wiki page, but add the page link to
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/HowTos. 
So, the HowTos page is more like a page with links that somehow relate
to Ubuntu Studio. 

But, you can't make mistakes either. If it works, it works :)

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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Jimmy Sjölund]

I was thinking of pages I have found  that seem not connected which
have good info that we could pull into or use parts of in the
structured part of the wiki.

Sent from my iPhone

On 5 jul 2013, at 23:14, Kaj Ailomaa  wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Jul 5, 2013, at 03:41 PM, Jimmy Sjölund wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 3:33 PM, Jarno Suni
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I think it would be better to add the info in some other web page that is
>>> about tweaking existing Ubuntu Studio installation, not to the page that is
>>> about tweaking on standard Ubuntu installation. Anyway, the config file
>>> issue applies, but I still don't know if the change is done in 12.10 or
>>> only in 13.04.
>>>
>>> I agree, perhaps 
>>> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/UserGuidewould be better, 
>>> though very incomplete. The wiki is a bit messy and would
>> need a bit of work to re-structure (I'm hoping to get some time to help
>> out
>> with that during the summer).
>> --
>> Ubuntu-Studio-devel mailing list
>> Ubuntu-Studio-devel@lists.ubuntu.com
>> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-devel
>
>
> Currently, the "structure" is more or less structured by me - I
> reorganized the wiki last year, and put stuff in order :). Both wikis
> actually;
> http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio
> http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio
>
> (note the header/menu that exists on both wikis, which allows for an
> easy oversight of all Ubuntu Studio resources)
>
> The User Guide is meant for the web site ultimately, but the help wiki
> is a great place for developing it. The backbone that exists there is
> just a sketch - one which could be redone if someone wants to do that.
>
> I think this page is terrific for adding anything random that has
> anything to do with Ubuntu Studio, like how to disable pulseaudio
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/HowTos.
> Articles don't need to be well written, or anything. More like a notepad
> for useful tips.
>
>
> --
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> Ubuntu-Studio-devel@lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: 
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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Kaj Ailomaa]

On Fri, Jul 5, 2013, at 03:41 PM, Jimmy Sjölund wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 3:33 PM, Jarno Suni
> wrote:
> 
> > I think it would be better to add the info in some other web page that is
> > about tweaking existing Ubuntu Studio installation, not to the page that is
> > about tweaking on standard Ubuntu installation. Anyway, the config file
> > issue applies, but I still don't know if the change is done in 12.10 or
> > only in 13.04.
> >
> > I agree, perhaps 
> > https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/UserGuidewould be better, 
> > though very incomplete. The wiki is a bit messy and would
> need a bit of work to re-structure (I'm hoping to get some time to help
> out
> with that during the summer).
> -- 
> Ubuntu-Studio-devel mailing list
> Ubuntu-Studio-devel@lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-devel


Currently, the "structure" is more or less structured by me - I
reorganized the wiki last year, and put stuff in order :). Both wikis
actually;
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio
http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio

(note the header/menu that exists on both wikis, which allows for an
easy oversight of all Ubuntu Studio resources)

The User Guide is meant for the web site ultimately, but the help wiki
is a great place for developing it. The backbone that exists there is
just a sketch - one which could be redone if someone wants to do that.

I think this page is terrific for adding anything random that has
anything to do with Ubuntu Studio, like how to disable pulseaudio
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/HowTos. 
Articles don't need to be well written, or anything. More like a notepad
for useful tips.


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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Jimmy Sjölund]

On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 3:33 PM, Jarno Suni wrote:

> I think it would be better to add the info in some other web page that is
> about tweaking existing Ubuntu Studio installation, not to the page that is
> about tweaking on standard Ubuntu installation. Anyway, the config file
> issue applies, but I still don't know if the change is done in 12.10 or
> only in 13.04.
>
> I agree, perhaps 
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/UserGuidewould be better, 
> though very incomplete. The wiki is a bit messy and would
need a bit of work to re-structure (I'm hoping to get some time to help out
with that during the summer).
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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[Jarno Suni]

I think it would be better to add the info in some other web page that is
about tweaking existing Ubuntu Studio installation, not to the page that is
about tweaking on standard Ubuntu installation. Anyway, the config file
issue applies, but I still don't know if the change is done in 12.10 or
only in 13.04.


2013/7/5 ttoine 

> Hi,
>
> Thanks for the feedback. Maybe you can add a small subsection about 13.04
> on the wiki page ?
>
>
> Antoine THOMAS
> Tél: 0663137906
>
>
> 2013/7/5 Jarno Suni 
>
>> Hi
>>
>> I heard cracking of audio at certain times when playing back a movie
>> using xine in Ubuntu Studio 13.04. I disabled pulseaudio and cracking was
>> gone. Also, when i muted some tracks in alsamixer, some other tracks were
>> muted, too. That also happened only when pulseaudioa was running.  I guess
>> I don't need pulseaudio. I looked instructions on disabling pulseaudio from
>> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudioPreparation#Disabling_PulseAudiothat
>>  is meant for Ubuntu 12.04.
>>
>> Just did it little bit differently:
>>
>> 1.
>> echo "autospawn = no" > ~/.config/pulse/client.conf
>> as there is no more ~/.pulse directory. (When did that change?)
>>
>> 2.
>> On Settings > Settings Manager > Session and Startup at Application
>> Autostart I removed the tick in front of PulseAudio Sound System.
>>
>>
>> --
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>> http://www.iki.fi/8/
>>
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Re: Disabling pulseaudio

[ttoine]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. Maybe you can add a small subsection about 13.04
on the wiki page ?


Antoine THOMAS
Tél: 0663137906


2013/7/5 Jarno Suni 

> Hi
>
> I heard cracking of audio at certain times when playing back a movie using
> xine in Ubuntu Studio 13.04. I disabled pulseaudio and cracking was gone.
> Also, when i muted some tracks in alsamixer, some other tracks were muted,
> too. That also happened only when pulseaudioa was running.  I guess I don't
> need pulseaudio. I looked instructions on disabling pulseaudio from
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudioPreparation#Disabling_PulseAudiothat
>  is meant for Ubuntu 12.04.
>
> Just did it little bit differently:
>
> 1.
> echo "autospawn = no" > ~/.config/pulse/client.conf
> as there is no more ~/.pulse directory. (When did that change?)
>
> 2.
> On Settings > Settings Manager > Session and Startup at Application
> Autostart I removed the tick in front of PulseAudio Sound System.
>
>
> --
> JARNO SUNI
> http://www.iki.fi/8/
>
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