Pulseaudio - is it required or useful to have?

English Multimedia
1

Is Pulseaudio required? It just seemed to appear after the last kernel update.

I have intermittant sound problems (HDA Intel audio device failed and is falling back to …) since the last kernel update and was wondering if uninstalling pulseaudio would help.

2

Further to your other thread. Mine does show error message sometimes, saying falling back to pulse. But not recently (Last month or so)
Here some shots from the Desktop Config - Multimedia
http://thumbnails12.imagebam.com/3935/8afc6f39340049.gif](http://www.imagebam.com/image/8afc6f39340049/) http://thumbnails15.imagebam.com/3935/80895e39340052.gif](http://www.imagebam.com/image/80895e39340052/)

3

Here are my screenshots. I seem to have a few additional intel devices and my pulseaudio doesn’t have the same icon. Does this mean it’s not properly configured?
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa111/sklipikish/openSUSE/th_snapshot3.png](http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa111/sklipikish/openSUSE/snapshot3.png)http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa111/sklipikish/openSUSE/th_snapshot4.png](http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa111/sklipikish/openSUSE/snapshot4.png)
http://s198.photobucket.com/albums/aa111/sklipikish/openSUSE/?action=view&current=snapshot3.pnghttp://s198.photobucket.com/albums/aa111/sklipikish/openSUSE/?action=view&current=snapshot4.png

4

What about here
http://thumbnails17.imagebam.com/3935/ef401e39343717.gif](http://www.imagebam.com/image/ef401e39343717/)

5

Mine says
‘0’ under index and ‘Thinkpad T60/R60’ series for card model.

I noticed that the T60/R60 series turns up a lot in the various configuration files / modules. I guess the X60s belongs to that group.

6

I don’t think so; when I installed openSUSE 11.1 the Intel device would not work until there was a patch issued. Like you since the last kernel update, I have started getting the messages (suggesting that the earlier patch no longer works) but the fallback means sound is OK.

7

Pulse has been a mixed experience for many, granted its very promising and will be a standard on many distros but its also experimental.