[LAU] pulseaudio headaches

[Ng Oon-Ee]

On Tue, 2009-12-29 at 16:21 +0530, Rustom Mody wrote:
> 2009/12/28 Ng Oon-Ee <ngoonee at gmail.com>:
> > On Sun, 2009-12-27 at 21:35 +0530, Rustom Mody wrote:
> >> I recently was introduced to nted
> >> Tried it on my debian-lenny desktop and it works nicely.
> >> But now need it on my laptop for a travel-demo session.
> >>
> >> Now the laptop (was) running hardy which has some pulseaudio headaches.
> >> In any case I had to upgrade because the clone monitor which is needed
> >> for a presentation does not work in hardy
> >>
> >> Now the headaches increase!  Pulseaudio more and more tightly
> >> integrated into ubuntu and nted (or is it timidity?) does not like it
> >> at all.
> >> Managed to remove pulse (with some associated packages)
> >>
> >> nted works once again but I cant adjust volume and and clicks and
> >> other ubuntu sounds which could be configured with
> >> System->preferences->sound wont come up saying: Waiting for sound
> >> system to respond.
> >>
> >> Any suggestions?
> >
> > Ubuntu sans Pulseaudio is a pain to get working. You'd probably have
> > better luck getting nted to run on pulseaudio.
> >
> > A quick search reveals
> > http://vsr.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/staff/jan/nted/doc/ch01s50.html
> 
> That link basically says dont use pulseaudio (if you want to use nted)
> 
> >
> > Having never used nted before, I can't really comment much, but wouldn't
> > using JACK solve things, since pulseaudio now plays quite well with jack
> > (jackdmp, not jack 0.118 or whatever they're on now for jack1).
> 
> The last time I tried jack (this was on debian about a year back) my
> sound stopped working.  Of course Ive not idea how to use jack so Im
> not complaining.
> 
> If you could tell me what packages to try Ill try and see.
> 
> Also (if some such thing is there) I would very much like to see
> something about linux sound architecture.  IOW jack, pulse and esd all
> seem to be 'servers' of some sort and (from what you say) jack seems
> to work well with pulse but pulse and esd are an either-or. So whats
> the bigger picture of all this.

Sorry, no link for you, but here's my understanding.

Control of audio devices in Linux is done by ALSA (OSSv3 is crap, OSSv4
is an alternative pathway which I don't care about and won't mention
further on LAU). ALSA has 2 components, the 'driver' component in kernel
which actually controls audio devices and the 'user' component in
userspace which exposes the 'driver' component to apps.

Sound servers exist on top of ALSA's 'driver' component. There's debate
on whether they're necessary, but when they work most would agree they
simplify things.

ESD is deprecated and no longer developed, Pulseaudio can be considered
its replacement and is currently de facto the main sound server for
desktop use. It is not perfect, but <opinion> is pretty darn close and
is improving well </opinion>.

JACK is a sound server for pro/semi-pro audio users. Some apps are JACK
only (Ardour etc.), and JACK should only be used by those interested in
audio work instead of just getting sound to work.

Pulseaudio can connect to alsa directly or through JACK through
pulseaudio-module-jack (debian). This is my personal preference for a
general purpose machine which isn't focused on only audio work or only
desktop usage.