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PulseAudio has been removed from dports

lists.dragonflybsd.org

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Re: PulseAudio has been removed from dports

#21

Post by anonbanker »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #3
AstralStorm wrote: post #2

Removal is the best fix, always. Who needs features anyway.

This is a dumb comment and akin to predicting the iphone would fail because it doesn't have flash support. Pulseaudio is a very finicky troublesome bit of open source software. The alternative (ALSA) is much more friendly to work with. Any seasoned sysadmin probably welcomes the death of Pulseaudio.

a person on reddit had the idea of an /etc/portage/package.mask/FuckLennartPoettering file on his gentoo install filled with systemd/pulseaudio/networkmanager/avahi entries. I decided to implement the same on every system (desktop, laptop and server) I control, with no real issues. wpa_gui works fine to replace networkmanager, JACK is far superior to PulseAudio, and OpenRC is a fine init system.

I encourage anyone else experiencing pain points with current linux distributions to do something similar, or install a distribution that does so, such as Calculate Linux, Void Linux, or Gentoo.

Re: PulseAudio has been removed from dports

#22

Post by justinsaccount »

2000: Audio on linux sucks. If you are lucky you can have two applications generating sound at the same time. You can't hotplug audio devices. You can't have per application volume. You can't move audio streams to different output devices.

2016: Pulseaudio sucks because.. reasons.

Re: PulseAudio has been removed from dports

#23

Post by anonbanker »

microcolonel wrote: post #17
shiftpgdn wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a dumb comment and akin to predicting the iphone would fail because it doesn't have flash support. Pulseaudio is a very finicky troublesome bit of open source software. The alternative (ALSA) is much more friendly to work with. Any seasoned sysadmin probably welcomes the death of Pulseaudio.

ALSA is not an alternative to Pulseaudio. If your audio chipset doesn't have a hardware mixer, and about of half of laptop chipsets don't, then you can't play more than one stream at a time. If you have an array microphone, the only way it'll work at all is with Pulseaudio. If you want Bluetooth audio, only Pulseaudio bothers to support it. Pulseaudio uses ALSA anyway (and on DFBSD it uses OSS instead); it's not a re…

JACK is a (better) alternative to PulseAudio, works in BSD, works with ALSA and OSS, and is superior in every way.

The reader is encouraged to download a KXStudio LiveUSB image, and see all the cool things JACK allows that PulseAudio cannot/will not catch up to.

Re: PulseAudio has been removed from dports

#24

Post by ne0phyte »

Symmetry wrote: post #13
na85 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who needs features anyway. Can you name a single feature or use case addressed by PulseAudio that isn't addressed by ALSA?

Unplugging my headphones and letting other people be able to hear what I'm listening to? I mean, with ALSA I can shut down whatever program I'm using, switch to speakers from headphones, then start the program up again but that's a bit cumbersome. Maybe it is possible with ALSA somehow but not with the programs and distros I'm familiar with. When PulseAudio came out all of a sudden Linux went from less convenient to…

I never had a laptop where plugging in headphones didn't disable the speaker (and nothing I could do about that in software).

If that really is the case you could use dmix and have audio played on both the headphone and speaker output. You would still have to mute the speakers when plugging in the headphones though.

Re: PulseAudio has been removed from dports

#25

Post by izacus »

na85 wrote: post #4
AstralStorm wrote: post #2

Removal is the best fix, always. Who needs features anyway.

>Who needs features anyway. Can you name a single feature or use case addressed by PulseAudio that isn't addressed by ALSA?

How do I make my bluetooth headset (which supports both A2DP and Handset profile) work with ALSA so it switches to headset profile when mic is active, reverts to A2DP when it's not and switches back to laptop audio when BT is off?

Re: PulseAudio has been removed from dports

#27

Post by pyre »

GranPC wrote: post #20
lmm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically it's a RedHat conspiracy to make open-source programs not work on non-Linux.

I don't see how building your program against ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) would make it more compatible with non-Linux OSs.

Maybe @lmm wishes that Redhat threw support behind OSS4? Is that supported under the *BSDs?

Re: PulseAudio has been removed from dports

#28

Post by Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd »

na85 wrote: post #4
AstralStorm wrote: post #2

Removal is the best fix, always. Who needs features anyway.

>Who needs features anyway. Can you name a single feature or use case addressed by PulseAudio that isn't addressed by ALSA?

PulseAudio features I have used in the past that I don't think ALSA has:

* playing audio from/to another Bluetooth device (with bluez)

* playing audio on a PulseAudio server running somewhere on the network

* transparent encoding of audio output as DTS (for surround support over SPDIF)

I also seem to remember plain ALSA having trouble with multiple applications playing sound at the same time, which is just pathetic.

I'm sure some of these could in theory be built on top of ALSA, but fact is that today's Linux distributions use PulseAudio, and for me it always worked well.

Re: PulseAudio has been removed from dports

#29

Post by mmastrac »

justinsaccount wrote: post #22

2000: Audio on linux sucks. If you are lucky you can have two applications generating sound at the same time. You can't hotplug audio devices. You can't have per application volume. You can't move audio streams to different output devices. 2016: Pulseaudio sucks because.. reasons.

It's an easy target. It sucks far less all the alternatives, but it's an easy punching bag for people who want something to hate.

I lived through the days of horrible sound support on Linux - I think it was my main desktop until my first Mac around ~2007. Playing video or games was a crapshoot. Hot-plugging audio wasn't even in the realm of possibility.

Re: PulseAudio has been removed from dports

#30

Post by khedoros »

ne0phyte wrote: post #24
Symmetry wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unplugging my headphones and letting other people be able to hear what I'm listening to? I mean, with ALSA I can shut down whatever program I'm using, switch to speakers from headphones, then start the program up again but that's a bit cumbersome. Maybe it is possible with ALSA somehow but not with the programs and distros I'm familiar with. When PulseAudio came out all of a sudden Linux went from less convenient to…

I never had a laptop where plugging in headphones didn't disable the speaker (and nothing I could do about that in software). If that really is the case you could use dmix and have audio played on both the headphone and speaker output. You would still have to mute the speakers when plugging in the headphones though.

I assume they're either using USB headphones or some other case of having multiple audio output devices, like my desktop with onboard sound and a separate PCI sound card.
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