Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Michael Lange]

Hi,

On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 00:21:31 +0200
Kaj Persson <70147pers...@telia.com> wrote:

> Thank you for all answers and advices. A silly question, perhaps: Do I 
> need take any special steps for the transform, or is just e.g.
> 
>     apt-get --autoremove remove pulseaudio
> 
> sufficient, and the system automaticly adapts to the new situation?

yes, in my experience simply removing pulseaudio should do the trick.

Regards

Michael

.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

Vulcans worship peace above all.
-- McCoy, "Return to Tomorrow", stardate 4768.3

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Kaj Persson]

On 2019-06-04 at 23:47, Joe Dennigan wrote:

Dan Ritter  writes:


Kaj Persson wrote:

I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by
default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is the
best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the one and
only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?

There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
in any other way except PulseAudio.

If you don't care about that, then you can certainly play music,
record audio, and otherwise do normal audio-related things
through ALSA.

I got shot of PulseAudio more than a year ago because of serious sound
latency issues (700-1200+ms in VirtualBox/WinXP for some old games I
love).  Using plain ALSA fixed that.

I had already switched to Palemoon as a browser (other problems with
Firefox - not audio relevant) at that point, and now also use Waterfox,
and have not missed PulseAudio or Firefox at all.  As I type this, I am
listening to Saint-Saëns Symphony No 3 on YouTube using Waterfox with no
problems whatsoever.

I don't know of any other desktop applications that actually need
PulseAudio and can't think of any disadvantage(s) to removing it.

Regards,

Joe Dennigan


Thank you for all answers and advices. A silly question, perhaps: Do I 
need take any special steps for the transform, or is just e.g.


   apt-get --autoremove remove pulseaudio

sufficient, and the system automaticly adapts to the new situation?

/Kaj

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 05 June 2019 02:02:59 pm deloptes wrote:

> Renato Gallo wrote:
> > I personally use pulse on chrome and firefox without problems of any
> > sort
>
> same here but I'm not using chrome at all. I use from time to time BT
> audio and pulse comes handy there. I am not sure if alsa can handle
> this.

Stretch, std FF, got sound, no pa stuff installed.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[deloptes]

Greg Wooledge wrote:

> As does firefox-esr 60.6.3esr-1 in buster, it seems.  I didn't know about
> about:buildconfig before.  Handy.
> 
> I don't know the exact story, but I've heard pieces of it over the last
> year or two.  Apparently at one point upstream decided not to support
> direct ALSA any more, but they left the code in place, just not enabled
> in the default compile-time configuration.  Debian's packages re-enabled
> the option to turn on ALSA support.  I was also told that, at some later
> point, upstream actually removed the ALSA code from their source tree,
> or was planning to do so.  I don't know if Debian is patching the ALSA
> code back in, or if the versions we have just haven't been neutered by
> upstream yet.

I installed some time ago from mozilla.org version is 63.0.1 and there is no
alsa in the about:buildconfig. Actually neither alsa nor PA.

I have heard that after investing so much time in PA they decided to
obsolete it, but it has been adopted by so many applications that it is
hard to go back now.

I've been following PA recently (since v.8) and should admit that 12.2
(which is in buster - I think actually it is 12.4, but not sure anymore) is
the best version ever. I compiled debian packages at 12.2 for stretch and I
must admit all my use cases work.

regards 

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[deloptes]

Renato Gallo wrote:

> I personally use pulse on chrome and firefox without problems of any sort

same here but I'm not using chrome at all. I use from time to time BT audio
and pulse comes handy there. I am not sure if alsa can handle this.

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[deloptes]

Joe wrote:

>> 
>> [1] The problem with "modern" is that it carries with itself a value
>> judgement, as a stowaway, so to speak. If you ain't "modern",
>> you're a luddite or something. That kind of thing makes communication
>> hard. It's difficult to listen, with all that shouting.
> 
> Never forget, not all progress is in the forward direction. It was
> progress which led to the Dark Ages.

After the civilization caring the progress collapsed - do not take things
out of the context please.

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Michael Lange]

Hi,

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 12:27:30 +0200
 wrote:

(...)
> What miffs me is that no-one in this thread seems to really care
> enough to go check the sources. But then, some still seem to care
> enough to go ballistic and complain loudly.
> 
> As I said, I'm happy with my Firefox having no sound (it hasn't;
> actually I do prefer it that way), so I haven't done any research
> into why.
> 
> What is your distro's version? What is your Firefox's version?

It's stretch with FF 60.7.0esr

Regards

Michael


.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

Schshschshchsch.
-- The Gorn, "Arena", stardate 3046.2

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[tomas]

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 08:34:59AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 12:34:49PM +0100, Brian wrote:
> > I hope I am believed when I say that firefox in unstable (67.0.1) has
> > --enable-alsa in about:buildconfig. And sound works without pulseaudio.
> 
> As does firefox-esr 60.6.3esr-1 in buster, it seems.  I didn't know about
> about:buildconfig before.  Handy.

Definitely.

> I don't know the exact story, but I've heard pieces of it over the last
> year or two.  Apparently at one point upstream decided not to support
> direct ALSA any more, but they left the code in place, just not enabled
> in the default compile-time configuration.  Debian's packages re-enabled
> the option to turn on ALSA support.  I was also told that, at some later
> point, upstream actually removed the ALSA code from their source tree,
> or was planning to do so.  I don't know if Debian is patching the ALSA
> code back in, or if the versions we have just haven't been neutered by
> upstream yet.

Now that would be something for someone to check with the package source.

Cheers
-- t


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Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[tomas]

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 08:43:31AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 10:12:54AM +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > If you don't care about those things -- or are in for some
> > fiddling -- by all means, drop Pulse, and tell us others about
> > it!

> When I do youtube stuff in google-chrome-stable, it just works, and I've
> never had to mess with anything other than un-muting and raising the
> volume through alsamixer.

[...]

For me, it's cclive or youtube-dl. I don't like others watching me
watching videos ;-)

> So, ALSA is definitely not perfection, but I've heard far more horror
> stories from Pulse Audio users than from ALSA users.

This might as well be selection bias: folks avoiding Pulse are in for
it and may be readier to Know What They're Doing (TM).

Cheers
-- tomás


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Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Renato Gallo]

I personally use pulse on chrome and firefox without problems of any sort

Renato Gallo 

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- Original Message -
From: "Greg Wooledge" 
To: "debian-user" 
Sent: Wednesday, June 5, 2019 2:43:31 PM
Subject: Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 10:12:54AM +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> If you don't care about those things -- or are in for some
> fiddling -- by all means, drop Pulse, and tell us others about
> it!

I never installed it to begin with.  And my primary browsing has been in
google-chrome-stable for quite some time now, mostly due to the fact that
at the time I switched over, Firefox's javascript performance was simply
too slow for the kinds of web games I was playing.  Firefox's unilateral
out-of-nowhere decision to stop supporting the vast majority of user
add-ons wasn't a plus, either.

When I do youtube stuff in google-chrome-stable, it just works, and I've
never had to mess with anything other than un-muting and raising the
volume through alsamixer.  At least not on my last couple systems.
(Before those, I had a system with on-board audio and a sound card, and
ALSA had to be beaten over the head to tell it which device to use.)

So, ALSA is definitely not perfection, but I've heard far more horror
stories from Pulse Audio users than from ALSA users.

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Greg Wooledge]

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 10:12:54AM +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> If you don't care about those things -- or are in for some
> fiddling -- by all means, drop Pulse, and tell us others about
> it!

I never installed it to begin with.  And my primary browsing has been in
google-chrome-stable for quite some time now, mostly due to the fact that
at the time I switched over, Firefox's javascript performance was simply
too slow for the kinds of web games I was playing.  Firefox's unilateral
out-of-nowhere decision to stop supporting the vast majority of user
add-ons wasn't a plus, either.

When I do youtube stuff in google-chrome-stable, it just works, and I've
never had to mess with anything other than un-muting and raising the
volume through alsamixer.  At least not on my last couple systems.
(Before those, I had a system with on-board audio and a sound card, and
ALSA had to be beaten over the head to tell it which device to use.)

So, ALSA is definitely not perfection, but I've heard far more horror
stories from Pulse Audio users than from ALSA users.

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Greg Wooledge]

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 12:34:49PM +0100, Brian wrote:
> I hope I am believed when I say that firefox in unstable (67.0.1) has
> --enable-alsa in about:buildconfig. And sound works without pulseaudio.

As does firefox-esr 60.6.3esr-1 in buster, it seems.  I didn't know about
about:buildconfig before.  Handy.

I don't know the exact story, but I've heard pieces of it over the last
year or two.  Apparently at one point upstream decided not to support
direct ALSA any more, but they left the code in place, just not enabled
in the default compile-time configuration.  Debian's packages re-enabled
the option to turn on ALSA support.  I was also told that, at some later
point, upstream actually removed the ALSA code from their source tree,
or was planning to do so.  I don't know if Debian is patching the ALSA
code back in, or if the versions we have just haven't been neutered by
upstream yet.

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[tomas]

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 12:34:49PM +0100, Brian wrote:
> On Wed 05 Jun 2019 at 12:08:00 +0200, Michael Lange wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 05:38:18 -0400
> > Dan Ritter  wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > > https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661
> > > 
> > > That was two years ago.
> > 
> > yes, I remember the discussions about that, but still here audio in
> > firefox without PA never ceased to work.
> > Actually I always wondered if anyone really tried or if everyone just
> > believed what other people say ;)
> 
> I hope I am believed when I say that firefox in unstable (67.0.1) has
> --enable-alsa in about:buildconfig. And sound works without pulseaudio.

Ah, thanks. At last someone doing something :-)

Should we meet somewhere I owe you a $BEVERAGE (whithin my financial
possibilities, that is ;-)

Cheers
-- t


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Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Brian]

On Wed 05 Jun 2019 at 12:27:30 +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> Anyone out there care to download the Debian source package and
> check what the compile options are? This *must* be visible in the
> Debian-specific patches, right?

Not necessary. Use about:buildconfig.

-- 
Brian.

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Brian]

On Wed 05 Jun 2019 at 12:08:00 +0200, Michael Lange wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 05:38:18 -0400
> Dan Ritter  wrote:
> 
> 
> > https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661
> > 
> > That was two years ago.
> 
> yes, I remember the discussions about that, but still here audio in
> firefox without PA never ceased to work.
> Actually I always wondered if anyone really tried or if everyone just
> believed what other people say ;)

I hope I am believed when I say that firefox in unstable (67.0.1) has
--enable-alsa in about:buildconfig. And sound works without pulseaudio.

-- 
Brian.

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Stephan Seitz]

On Mi, Jun 05, 2019 at 11:20:58 +0200, Michael Lange wrote:

Georgi Naplatanov  wrote:

If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use an ALSA
device at the same time on your computer.

really? Here I can play back a video in firefox and play another video


No, I don’t think so.
IIRC: In the beginning of ALSA you needed a soundcard with hardware 
mixing capabilities. Later, ALSA got a mixer plugin itself.


So, you don’t need Pulse to have multiple audio sources.
And if you only have one soundcard, PulseAudio is overkill. Besides, 
PulseAudio lies on top of ALSA.


The advantages of PulseAudio are:
- more than one soundcard, maybe even changing (onboard, USB soundcare, 
 headset, etc.)
- you want to move the application from one soundcard to another without 
 reconfiguring the application to the new soundcard

- network capabilities

Shade and sweet water!

Stephan

--
| Stephan Seitz  E-Mail: s...@fsing.rootsland.net |
| Public Keys: http://fsing.rootsland.net/~stse/keys.html |


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Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[tomas]

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 12:13:54PM +0200, Michael Lange wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 11:33:15 +0200
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> > Now don't expect your distro maintainer's to continue indefinitely
> > maintaining your firefox's port in a non-standard configuration.
> > 
> 
> sure, I don't expect anything in particular ;)
> But I believe I can perfectly wait with taking action until it becomes
> necessary and decide then what to do.
> 
> And when everyone seems to say that there is no sound in firefox without
> PA, it appears to be definitely not true for now, at least with debian
> stable.

What miffs me is that no-one in this thread seems to really care
enough to go check the sources. But then, some still seem to care
enough to go ballistic and complain loudly.

As I said, I'm happy with my Firefox having no sound (it hasn't;
actually I do prefer it that way), so I haven't done any research
into why.

What is your distro's version? What is your Firefox's version?

Anyone out there care to download the Debian source package and
check what the compile options are? This *must* be visible in the
Debian-specific patches, right?

Cheers
-- tomás


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Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Michael Lange]

Hi,

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 11:33:15 +0200
 wrote:


> Now don't expect your distro maintainer's to continue indefinitely
> maintaining your firefox's port in a non-standard configuration.
> 

sure, I don't expect anything in particular ;)
But I believe I can perfectly wait with taking action until it becomes
necessary and decide then what to do.

And when everyone seems to say that there is no sound in firefox without
PA, it appears to be definitely not true for now, at least with debian
stable.

Regards

Michael

.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

Women professionals do tend to over-compensate.
-- Dr. Elizabeth Dehaver, "Where No Man Has Gone Before",
   stardate 1312.9.

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Michael Lange]

Hi,

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 05:38:18 -0400
Dan Ritter  wrote:


> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661
> 
> That was two years ago.

yes, I remember the discussions about that, but still here audio in
firefox without PA never ceased to work.
Actually I always wondered if anyone really tried or if everyone just
believed what other people say ;)

Regards

Michael


.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

Our way is peace.
-- Septimus, the Son Worshiper, "Bread and Circuses",
   stardate 4040.7.

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Tixy]

On Wed, 2019-06-05 at 11:17 +0200, Michael Lange wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 15:55:34 -0400
> Dan Ritter  wrote:
> 
> > Kaj Persson wrote: 
> > > I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the
> > > Pulseaudio is
> > > by default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor.
> > > Which
> > > is the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting
> > > Alsa be
> > > the one and only audio system? Are there any serious
> > > disadvantages
> > > doing so?
> > 
> > There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
> > in any other way except PulseAudio.
> 
> is that actually true? Here I can watch videos on yt or vimeo for
> example
> in firefox with sound perfectly intact without pulseaudio installed.
> In which situations does sound in ff not work?

Hmm, I just uninstalled PulseAudio and Firefox audio still works, so I
guess Debian are still enabling ALSA in their builds. As others have
pointed out, this is likely to not be the case in the long run.

Think I may have installed PulseAudio as an effort to get Google
Hangouts video chat working in the Chromium browser. Just tried that
and with ALSA, I can't seem to get it to use headphones even when they
are selected explicitly by name.

-- 
Tixy

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Dan Ritter]

Michael Lange wrote: 
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 15:55:34 -0400
> Dan Ritter  wrote:
> 
> > Kaj Persson wrote: 
> > > I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is
> > > by default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which
> > > is the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be
> > > the one and only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages
> > > doing so?
> > 
> > There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
> > in any other way except PulseAudio.
> 
> is that actually true? Here I can watch videos on yt or vimeo for example
> in firefox with sound perfectly intact without pulseaudio installed.
> In which situations does sound in ff not work?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661

That was two years ago.

-dsr-

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[tomas]

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 11:20:58AM +0200, Michael Lange wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 22:51:31 +0300
> Georgi Naplatanov  wrote:

[...]

> > If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use an ALSA
> > device at the same time on your computer.
> 
> really? Here I can play back a video in firefox and play another video
> from harddisk in vlc and the sound tracks are happily mixed by alsa (not
> that it's an enjoyable experience, but it works :)

Straight from the Horse's Mouth:

  "ALSA support was dropped starting Firefox 52.0 and later.
   Some Linux distros may have delayed this change with their
   own third-party Firefox packages to use ALSA until more
   recently.

   You could compile Firefox yourself with --disable-pulseaudio
   --enable-alsa

   Keep in mind that if you do this you will not get updates from
   Mozilla as it will be a third-party build."

(see e.g. [1]). Checking what options your distro compiled it
with is left as an exercise to the reader :-)

Now don't expect your distro maintainer's to continue indefinitely
maintaining your firefox's port in a non-standard configuration.

This is significant work, so if you care about it, do step in.

Cheers

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1209469

-- t


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Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Michael Lange]

Hi,

On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 22:51:31 +0300
Georgi Naplatanov  wrote:

> On 6/4/19 10:24 PM, Kaj Persson wrote:
> > I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is
> > by default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which
> > is the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be
> > the one and only audio system? 
> 
> PulseAudio is some kind of mixer/proxy between ALSA and desktop
> applications. In modern GNU/Linux OSes it's discouraged to remove/not
> using PulseAudio.
> 
> Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?
> 
> If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use an ALSA
> device at the same time on your computer.

really? Here I can play back a video in firefox and play another video
from harddisk in vlc and the sound tracks are happily mixed by alsa (not
that it's an enjoyable experience, but it works :)

Regards

Michael


.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

One does not thank logic.
-- Sarek, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Michael Lange]

Hi,

On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 15:55:34 -0400
Dan Ritter  wrote:

> Kaj Persson wrote: 
> > I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is
> > by default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which
> > is the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be
> > the one and only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages
> > doing so?
> 
> There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
> in any other way except PulseAudio.

is that actually true? Here I can watch videos on yt or vimeo for example
in firefox with sound perfectly intact without pulseaudio installed.
In which situations does sound in ff not work?

Regards

Michael


.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy.  There is
nothing good in war.  Except its ending.
-- Abraham Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Joe]

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 10:06:23 +0200
 wrote:


> 
> [1] The problem with "modern" is that it carries with itself a value
>judgement, as a stowaway, so to speak. If you ain't "modern",
> you're a luddite or something. That kind of thing makes communication
> hard. It's difficult to listen, with all that shouting.

Never forget, not all progress is in the forward direction. It was
progress which led to the Dark Ages.

-- 
Joe

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[deloptes]

humbert.olivie...@free.fr wrote:

> Depending on your needs. PA is good at resampling easily different audio
> flows at different samplerate. Much easily that what one can do with ALSA.
> 
> Olivier

Yes and integration with other subsystems like bluetooth and dbus

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[tomas]

On Tue, Jun 04, 2019 at 10:51:31PM +0300, Georgi Naplatanov wrote:

[...]

> PulseAudio is some kind of mixer/proxy between ALSA and desktop
> applications. In modern GNU/Linux OSes it's discouraged to remove/not
> using PulseAudio.

Because... Reasons. What is a "modern GNU/Linux OS" anyway?

This ain't very helpful. More detailed: if you want your Gnome
desktop environment to work "out of the box" and your (newer)
Firefox to have access to sound, you're better off with Pulse.

If you don't care about those things -- or are in for some
fiddling -- by all means, drop Pulse, and tell us others about
it!

[...]

> Why don't you want to use PulseAudio, any problems?

Hmmm.

Cheers
-- t


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Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[tomas]

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 07:40:30AM +0100, Tixy wrote:
> On Tue, 2019-06-04 at 22:51 +0300, Georgi Naplatanov wrote:
> [...]
> > If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use an ALSA
> > device at the same time on your computer. Even some applications
> > support
> > PulseAudio only.
> 
> Like Firefox, that was the reason I relented and installed Pulse Audio
> (to listen to online video).

See? I'm happy my browser has no sound, at last :-)

Thing is... if you ban pulseaudio, you should know that many "desktop
environments" and other so-called "modern" [1] software rely on it.
So you should know what you're doing or you should be willing to learn
things.

In that case, it can be quite rewarding.

In a nutshell, I'd say: if you want to *just* use your distribution
as a tool that Just Works (TM) and tend to opt for "the defaults",
just use PulseAudio. If you want to tinker and learn (which doesn't
mean that your distro will be useless!), dropping one or two of these
migth be a rewarding avenue.

Thanks to Debian and to all of you hard-working DDs and other Debian
folks for making both avenues possible! [2]

Cheers

[1] The problem with "modern" is that it carries with itself a value
   judgement, as a stowaway, so to speak. If you ain't "modern", you're
   a luddite or something. That kind of thing makes communication hard.
   It's difficult to listen, with all that shouting.

[2] I know, I know. I repeat myself. Must be an age thing. Apologies.

-- tomás


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Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Michael Howard]

On 04/06/2019 20:24, Kaj Persson wrote:
I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is 
by default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which 
is the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be 
the one and only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages 
doing so?

/Kaj


PulseAudio gives sound across the network. Wouldn't be without it.

--
Mike Howard

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Tixy]

On Tue, 2019-06-04 at 22:51 +0300, Georgi Naplatanov wrote:
[...]
> If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use an ALSA
> device at the same time on your computer. Even some applications
> support
> PulseAudio only.

Like Firefox, that was the reason I relented and installed Pulse Audio
(to listen to online video).

-- 
Tixy

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[humbert . olivier . 1]

> ALSA itself is capable enough that I don't see the point of
> an audio server like pulseaudio.

Depending on your needs. PA is good at resampling easily different audio flows 
at different samplerate.
Much easily that what one can do with ALSA.

Olivier

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Joe Pfeiffer]

humbert.olivie...@free.fr writes:

>> If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use
>> an ALSA device at the same time on your computer.
>
> This is untrue. ALSA provides dmix for mixing different audio flows.
>
> Olivier

What's more, the default device uses dmix.  And I find it a lot easier
to do this mixing in raw audio than in PA.

ALSA itself is capable enough that I don't see the point of an audio
server like pulseaudio.

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Joe Dennigan]

Dan Ritter  writes:

> Kaj Persson wrote: 
>> I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by
>> default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is the
>> best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the one and
>> only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?
>
> There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
> in any other way except PulseAudio.
>
> If you don't care about that, then you can certainly play music,
> record audio, and otherwise do normal audio-related things
> through ALSA.

I got shot of PulseAudio more than a year ago because of serious sound
latency issues (700-1200+ms in VirtualBox/WinXP for some old games I
love).  Using plain ALSA fixed that.

I had already switched to Palemoon as a browser (other problems with
Firefox - not audio relevant) at that point, and now also use Waterfox,
and have not missed PulseAudio or Firefox at all.  As I type this, I am
listening to Saint-Saëns Symphony No 3 on YouTube using Waterfox with no
problems whatsoever.

I don't know of any other desktop applications that actually need
PulseAudio and can't think of any disadvantage(s) to removing it.

Regards,

Joe Dennigan


-- 
“Blood sacrifices keep the planet from eating your feet”
  -- Red

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[John Conover]

One thing you might try is to edit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf, and set:

flat-volumes = no

This will fix most problems with pulseaudio, and alsa will work pretty
much as expected.

John

BTW, automatic volume control was added in Windows 10. This was the
era that pulseaudio was developed, and the same functionality was
included. It didn't work out in Windows 10, and the functionality was
removed. Pulseaudio still has the functionality.

Georgi Naplatanov writes:
> On 6/4/19 10:24 PM, Kaj Persson wrote:
> > I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by
> > default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is
> > the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the
> > one and only audio system? 
> 
> PulseAudio is some kind of mixer/proxy between ALSA and desktop
> applications. In modern GNU/Linux OSes it's discouraged to remove/not
> using PulseAudio.
> 
> Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?
> 
> If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use an ALSA
> device at the same time on your computer. Even some applications support
> PulseAudio only.
> 
> Why don't you want to use PulseAudio, any problems?
> 
> Kind regards
> Georgi

-- 

John Conover, cono...@rahul.net, http://www.johncon.com/

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[humbert . olivier . 1]

> If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use
> an ALSA device at the same time on your computer.

This is untrue. ALSA provides dmix for mixing different audio flows.

Olivier

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Georgi Naplatanov]

On 6/4/19 10:24 PM, Kaj Persson wrote:
> I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by
> default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is
> the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the
> one and only audio system? 

PulseAudio is some kind of mixer/proxy between ALSA and desktop
applications. In modern GNU/Linux OSes it's discouraged to remove/not
using PulseAudio.

Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?

If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use an ALSA
device at the same time on your computer. Even some applications support
PulseAudio only.

Why don't you want to use PulseAudio, any problems?

Kind regards
Georgi

Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Dan Ritter]

Kaj Persson wrote: 
> I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by
> default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is the
> best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the one and
> only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?

There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
in any other way except PulseAudio.

If you don't care about that, then you can certainly play music,
record audio, and otherwise do normal audio-related things
through ALSA.

-dsr-

Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

[Kaj Persson]

I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by 
default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is 
the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the 
one and only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?

/Kaj