Different between Alsa and Pulsaudio?

English Hardware
1

Hi!
Sound in Linux is kind of different from Windows-world. In Linux you have Alsasound and Pulssound, but what is the different? What use Alsa and what use Pulse? Do i need both?

2

ronnys wrote:
> Hi!
> Sound in Linux is kind of different from Windows-world. In Linux you
> have Alsasound and Pulssound, but what is the different? What use Alsa
> and what use Pulse? Do i need both?

this is probably not the best answer you will get, but: some folks
think plusaudio is not ready for use yet and recommend uninstalling
it…(i don’t have it on my machine)

i’ll let others give you their views and hereby RECOMMEND you do not
uninstall it until you have heard MORE views and success stories…(if
there are any!)

–
brassy

3

ALSA is a low level driver while Pulse sits on top of ALSA, Something like new sound server in Vista/Windows 7 which is no more hardware driven.

I am using ALSA now since Pulse audio has given me too many problems to date, maybe in openSUSE 11.2 it will be more succesfull.

4

Some time back I documented the little I know about openSUSE Linux sound in this sound concepts wiki: Sound-concepts - openSUSE

Thus far no one else has editted it to correct any mistakes which either means :

  • its reasonably accurate and big changes not needed; or
  • its so far out to lunch that no one wants to touch it with a 10 foot pole, or
    *]no one really cares. What matters is one’s sound “just works” :slight_smile:
    Hopefully it will answer your questions.
5

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PulseAudio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sound server - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These three pages should give you some clues on how sound and audio work under linux.
Its obvious that linux and windows use different methods to sound, also linux by default gives the user a choice on what sound system to use.
Windows only has one sound driver and system, Linux has several and its all about finding the right one for you.
For me Pulseaudio works just fine, but for some its not so good so that is why we have Alsa and OSS

6

Too much choice is sometimes a bad thing, especially for newbies :wink:

That said, Windows sound system beats the cr@p off of the Linux one. ALSA is cr@p, inefficient and often pain in the butt to configure (try configuring a 7.1 system through a S/PDIF, you’ll pull your hair off)