Re: Pulseaudio

[Daniel Elstner <daniel kitta googlemail com>]

Am Samstag, den 13.10.2007, 00:23 +0100 schrieb Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro:

>   But I would be interested to know why PA hogs the sound device.  No
> one explained this yet, and is the #1 question in my mind.  As far as I
> can tell, though I admit I'm no expert and could be wrong, PA should be
> able to access the sound device without locking it, like any normal
> application.  To put it simply, PA over ALSA/dmix.  If dmix was
> underneath PA, couldn't you still keep doing all those neat things
> anyway?  The way I see it, only applications using ALSA directly don't
> benefit from PA's features, but at least it would work.

Yes, it is indeed possible.  This is exactly how I set up own system,
incidentally for the same reason: running 32-bit apps on amd64.
Although hopefully 32-bit packages of libpulse and alsa-plugins will
arrive in Ubuntu soon. (Perhaps I should have a go at it if I find the
time.)

Of course dmix adds yet another layer of latency but the most important
thing to me for now is that it works.

By the way, Lennart: I think PulseAudio kicks ass.  With all the bad
experiences with ESD we had to endure for years, it is just hard to
believe that a user-space piece of software is actually able to deliver
audio smoothly, without cracks and pops andwhatnot.  But deliver it
does.

Cheers,
--Daniel