To hell with the junk!!!

[minthaka]

I don't know when they intend to drop the development of PulseAudio. It's a piece of junk, making troubles at least on Mandriva and Ubuntu. It's good for nothing, yet crashing around every audio/multimedia apps. Do we need it?

[Roxoff]

Actually, it's an Open Source project. If you have that many issues with it, why don't you get involved and help them sort out the crashes?

[bigtomrodney]

I haven't had trouble with it myself but I am wondering about the state of Audio in Linux at the moment. Does PulseAudio reimplement aRts/alsa/oss etc? Or is it just another layer of abstraction?

To be honest though audio is working better for me now than ever before. I can play music in Amarok with the xine engine while sound from Flashplayer overlays at the same time. No complaints there!

[techieMoe]

I haven't had trouble with it myself but I am wondering about the state of Audio in Linux at the moment. Does PulseAudio reimplement aRts/alsa/oss etc? Or is it just another layer of abstraction?

I haven't looked at the code, but from what I understand it's a completely different sound framework from ALSA and OSS, not just a wrapper.

[Manchunian]

I've had issues with Pulse. My wife is a fan of Band-in-a-box and, since Pulse has appeared, it has been impossible to use it. Apparently, Pulse doesn't work well with Wine.

[minthaka]

Well, I'm not as much upset as I was yesterday, so I'll try to explain why I dislike it:
1. It was around 10 months ago, when I met PulseAudio in Mandriva 2008.1 Beta1. It was no option to disable it. The sound system was totally disrupted. At that time they were "proud to announce the almost stable PA".
2. With Mandriva Spring 2008 this situation was better. There's an option to disable it, so after resetting the options in Xine, Audacious, Audacity, Skype... I was able to enjoy the beautiful world of music. This was in spring. I was hoping that this PA is happening only to Mandriva, but what a disaster...
3. I've just installed Ubuntu 8.10 and guess what... Skype not working again, and the guilty is still PA (10 months from the "stable" release). As soon as I've removed it, and reset the audio options I could have fun again.
4. For me personally the ALSA does the good job, and there's no need for changes. If PA will be something worthy, it's O.K. but the main distros shouldn't install it by default, but just let this framework as option at least as long as it is in its present state.
5. As I understood, PA will have some capacities required only by radio stations or music studios, which will not affect the 99% of the users.
6. Roxoff has right, but I don't have reasons to get involved in some project of no personal interest. If I'd like to mess up with sound servers I'd join, but I'm an averaged user wanting to be spared of experiments.

[bigtomrodney]

I haven't looked at the code, but from what I understand it's a completely different sound framework from ALSA and OSS, not just a wrapper.

I'm glad to hear that. One area in need of an update is audio in Linux and sometimes we forget that with all of the wifi drivers and graphics driver debates.

Manchunian, that's one I wasn't aware of. I usually steer clear of wine so I might have to check that out. That would be a bummer for a lot of people.

Minthaka, it is very frustrating when you get regressions from new 'state of the art' platforms. I'm curious though what the difference is between Mandriva and Ubuntu because I'm not having any of those problems. I know there is a big migration over to PA which took two Ubuntu releases. I'm wondering if it's just a case of Mandriva not finishing the move yet. Have you tried an Ubuntu live disc? Did you have the same trouble there?

[Manchunian]

One area in need of an update is audio in Linux and sometimes we forget that with all of the wifi drivers and graphics driver debates.

I couldn't agree more. Audio really is the Achilles heel of Linux in my opinion. So many times I've had to battle to get audio stuff working satisfactorily in Linux for my wife. I, for one, would really applaud Pulse if it helps with this. Well worth the teething problems.

[schwim]

Actually, it's an Open Source project. If you have that many issues with it, why don't you get involved and help them sort out the crashes?

Maybe he doesn't want to learn to code simply to have working audio?

Unreasonable I know, but some people can be very inflexible on demanding that even unnecessary aspects like audio work on their computer.

thanks,
json

[Manchunian]

Maybe he doesn't want to learn to code simply to have working audio?

Yes, this is the point. Linux is great because those that want to get their hands grubby can do so; but Linux will never become more popular if you have to fight with it to get key components to work. Fortunately, it's less and less that way: indeed, I'd say you fight more with Vista than you do with most Linux distros now.