debian-accessibility is interested in replacing pulseaudio with pipewire and I can understand why! Not saying pipewire has these essential features but pulseaudio has been a p.i.t.a. since I've had it on any hardware I've used. Whenever possible I avoid installing pulseaudio or remove it from a system that installs it automatically for sanity purposes.
On Thu, 16 Dec 2021, David Wright wrote: > On Thu 16 Dec 2021 at 09:13:11 (-0500), Dan Ritter wrote: > > Jude DaShiell wrote: > > > it would be nice if pulseaudio say in pavucontrol would get a find my > > > speakers button which would try what it thinks is a speaker andput a > > > message on the screen asking if the user heard some music. If the answer > > > is no, move onto the next speaker. > > > > It would be nice if, for example, it remembered the way that you > > wanted a system to be rather than recalculating it every time a > > device changes state. If I turn off the home theater receiver > > connected to my media server via HDMI, PulseAudio decides that > > it can't be used, so it helpfully switches over to another audio > > output device. When I turn the receiver back on, PulseAudio does > > not switch back to it automatically. > > > > The present case is probably similar: PA decided something was > > unplugged, switched to a different sink, and did not bring it > > back when it was "replugged". > > It's not just nice to have these features, but essential, and > that's one reason why I don't install pulseaudio. Using amixer > in ALSA, I can type one line and have the audio set how I want > it, with the correct levels set and unmuted, just as aumix did > under OSS for many years. > > And, of course, it's not that /I/ have to type that line. If > I now type in: > $ touch .cron/2021-12-19-05-55-rk-250 > then the system will automatically record the Sunday morning > programme from the radio, using appropriate recording levels > set by the script in bin/rk.sh. > > I could never get beyond having to poke around in pulseaudio > every time I used it. What I wanted was something that would > enable me to power up the PC at bedtime Saturday, and have it > just work without the necessity of logging in etc. > > Cheers, > David. > >