The good news for most about openSUSE is that pulse seems to be not mandatory if you use the KDE build.
But for me I installed pulse to make use of multiple sound outputs, the biggest issue for pulse I see in openSUSE so far is flash, I had to install the version from adobe’s website but meh.
pulse audio has given me much heart ache. The thing is if you have the x86_64 build of 11.2, trying to uninstall pulse downgrades some of the packages and the replacement packages are all for the i586 version. So i stopped right there.
As of now flash audio has been ok on my ATI integrated sound card with version 11.2 but 11.1 was a nightmare.
Added to this ATI support has been poor in linux, so i’m therereally not sure of the drivers being used for my ATI integrated sound card! I think suse is doing some collaboration with ATI but ATI has been way more shy about linux than intel has, so there is much to be desired!
I’m planning on securing an intel package for my next buy!
PulseAudio cannot exit my machines in every possible for imaginable fast enough and since I have hardware mixing in all machines the much vaunted multi-software mixing in PA is useless (then again you can do with that dmix so…)
Well I installed it on my 11.1 laptop as it was the only way I could easily get sound mixing to work from multiple sources. To be honest I didn’t really give trying to set it up with ALSA a proper chance as it seemed so complicated. I installed PA and it worked so I left it at that.
I will be replacing 11.1 with 11.2 on the laptop over Christmas so I’ll see how sound works on that and if necessary will install PA again. For me it just works but then my audio requirements on the laptop are probably not as advanced as you may want on a desktop.
Those forum sound supporters who are bored by the comparative quiet of 11.2, have more intersting times to look forward to (perhaps) Pulse Audio Phonon Support KDE 4.4
Hope the Pulse Audio code is in good shape by time OS11.3 is out, it does offer reduced power consumption, as well as a way forward for Linux sound, which with Graphics needs a cleaner less confusing API than currently presented.
{ Just to add, and missed the edit timeout on this sorry }
Note one of the changes introduced in 11.2 is the Desktop kernel, with Tick of 1,000 Hz and full pre-emption enabled, which reduces the maximum latency of the SuSE kernel to same amounts (5 ms) as used in Fedora kernel where most PA development & test was done. Reports on Factory Mail list suggested PA choppy sound got cured in many cases by such changes. Server type kernels may have latency of 250ms, which is bound to cause RT sensitive application like a sound server issues.
^^^ At least we have a plausible explanation for why pulseaudio was worse than it ought to have been, as opposed to the mystery of why some loved it some hated it.
Pulse audio had been a huge headache for me. I for the life of myself dont understand why it has been made mandatory for Gnome users. That a long with some other bad decisions by the Ubutarded Devs was the needle that finally broke the fat boys back. Luckily that was the move that got me to play around with Debian and I havent been happier in years.
Debian team thankfully does not make Pulse Audio mandatory or linked to anything that is not 100% essential. So it is in the repositories, but no one in their right mind uses it.
I’m still looking for a way to remove libpulse from my system but it requires a HUGE amount of changes. Must actually look into it. But I don’t use it. Didn’t like it and I am not to demanding from Linux with my sound…
The main reason Ubuntu uses pulse I think is because it has multi sound support, while ALSA and OSS always had issues with that.
Define “multi-sound”, I have never seen a issue where you could have multiple items playing at the same time. Only thing that PA provides is application independent sound control where as without it under ALSA or OSS you just had your standard MAIN/WAVE/MIDI/CD volume controls.
I can see where PA would be great with something line Ubuntu (sound)Studio thats for music making. But seriously they must get it working 101% before pushing it out on users. Its been a very bad experience across the board for many distros that have tried to implement it.
Think this means producing sound from more than one sound card simultaniously. I have no use for that anyways lol!
That’s because your sound system has hardware mixing, on cheapo Intel HDA craptacular chips and other trash like them they cut corners to save a few pennies and don’t offer it so all mixing has to be made on software level.
Weak sauce implementation.
I wouldnt call my sound chipset epic. Its your basic run of the line nvidia chipset sound built into the motherboard.
Biostar TF560 A2+
I been using similar sound chipsets for the past 5 or 6 years.
I installed PA a while back, but I removed it because it was kinda annoying.
I found I couldn’t control audio streams independently of volume which constantly raised volume to ear shattering levels, although some configuration provided a compromise, but not before causing me a lot of (ear) pain.
PA also introduced some subtle crackling and distortion at even the highest resampler, although that probably has more to do with my crappy integrated Intel HDA.
I guess I still like it though, because it lets me control volume for separate streams (read: mute the music in annoying flash games while I listen to music). Just not gonna be messing with it for some time.
I am running pulse audio, and it works just fine. Just follow this article; PulseAudio - openSUSE
Is anybody had success in getting a microphone to work in Skype when pulseaudio is installed? That is the only thing that is preventing me from “making the switch”.
Had pulse audio in 11.1 and fought hard to get rid of it, when it was running no mic-in, no line-in, no mixer, no headphone, no speaker. All that happened was an annoying statement that hardware was found but can’t be accessed. Finally got rid of pulse and presto got it all and working too.
Just changed to 11.2 and noticed it didn’t put any pulse-audio in and everything works.
IMHO pulse-audio was an attempt to add candy to pacify Alsa users because they didn’t want to actually change Alsa.
Guess last years version was the final one then and not an immature, new piece of software, included too early for the masses, made available on the “Release Early & Often” principal :
2008-10-06: PulseAudio 0.9.13 has been released. (Changes)
2009-11-23: PulseAudio 0.9.21 has been released. (Changes)
This version still not at 1.0, cannot of course be any better. It won’t have any bugs fixed, and what you learned last year, remains permantently true till the heat death of the Universe.
Sound serving in networks, controlling application volume levels and outputs are all just “candy”, nor is sampling of any interest to Linux-ers.
Keep everything the same, no changes; if you must change something, then test it perfectly on every combination of PC hardware. After all Sound Blaster & OSS worked perfectly well!
I for one see no reason at all to install it and am glad it’s gone as its always caused issues.
I would either have no sound under flash or it would only allow one application to playback sound at once… so if I had started Firefox (with a flashpage) then flash would ‘kidnap’ the sound and Amarok wouldn’t have any sound till I killed off flash… then if I wanted sound under flash I’d have to close down Amarok.
Really, really glad it is gone, no strange behaviour, not missing any features and it saves a lot of irritation.