pulseaudio network sound server

[zeroth]

I've googled my crotch off and got this thing almost working! Very exciting, I can type PULSE_SERVER=192.168.0.### on my laptop and the sound will come out of my server's speakers.

The problem is, the sound only works for about one whole second. For example, the song red red wine at the beginning, all you hear is "Red r...." and, then the sound cuts out. almost works!

the server is hard-wired into the router, and my laptop is wireless. haven't tried connecting with a lan cable, but I figure if it were a bandwidth issue there would just be studdering or a delay, not... this.

ideas?

[resthavener]

Not quite sure where you are typing this, but a process started in the terminal will quit if you close the terminal window (or run a script but not "run script in terminal"). I'm a mere novice myself but the answer may lie hereabouts.

[BrianMicek]

I've googled my crotch off and got this thing almost working! Very exciting, I can type PULSE_SERVER=192.168.0.### on my laptop and the sound will come out of my server's speakers.

The problem is, the sound only works for about one whole second. For example, the song red red wine at the beginning, all you hear is "Red r...." and, then the sound cuts out. almost works!

the server is hard-wired into the router, and my laptop is wireless. haven't tried connecting with a lan cable, but I figure if it were a bandwidth issue there would just be studdering or a delay, not... this.

ideas?

Hi Zeroth,
I'm not an expert with pulseaudio but I think I know what you need. There are two paths to try and someone that knows more can correct me.

First, I'm assuming you have a recent version of pulseaudio running on both your server and client. Try to install the package for your distribution that contains "paprefs" and run it. You should see some networked audio options and maybe they might work for you. For Fedora, paprefs is located in its own package named "paprefs". The comments in this URL show you what to expect: http://askubuntu.com/questions/28039...iple-computers

If that doesn't work, you can tweak the configuration files by hand. There are a few ways to run pulseaudio and most distributions seem to run it as the user owning the desktop. Its still a good idea to check how pulseaudio is running with a command like this (on both your server and laptop):

[brian@desktop ~]$ ps -ef | grep pulseaud | grep -v grep
brian     5996     1  1 Mar10 ?        00:32:05 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start

In my case, I'm running it as expected as non-root and not as root or not with the argument "--system". Assuming your configuration is the same, you can add/modify files in ~/.pulse rather than system files in /etc or /usr. If you Google for more information, keep in mind some documentation might have you modify system files when you don't need to.

The next step is to modify your ~/.pulse files ... This URL shows almost exactly the problem your having: http://superuser.com/questions/21061...r-at-boot-ubun and I think this might help the most http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=190954 ... specifically this part:

Yes - there is a better solution.
I had the same problem - I am running iceweasel as a different user than the user I am logged in as for additional security.
As the main user, I copied /etc/pulse/default.pa to ~/.pulse/default.pa. I added:
load-module module-native-protocol-tcp auth-ip-acl=127.0.0.1
As the second user, I created ~/.pulse/client.conf and added
default-server = 127.0.0.1
With this configuration, when the second user launches an application that uses pulseaudio, it will connect to the first user's pulseaudio instance.

I think if you set the IP address information accordingly, it might do what you want

[zeroth]

I have the most recent version of pulseaudio for debian testing (on the server) and linux mint 12 (on the client)

paprefs doesn't work on the server for some reason, so I edited the configs by hand. I'm not really sure why paprefs requires gnome to operate properly, but I digress. the config changes are trivial and anyone can do it.

pulseaudio is not running in servermode, so, yes:

root@eocserver:~# ps -ef | grep pulseaud | grep -v grep
localguy  2164     1  0 06:24 ?        00:00:03 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start
localguy  2187  2164  0 06:24 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/pulseaudio/pulse/gconf-helper
root@eocserver:~#

the files in ~/.pulse, presumably you mean on the client, would be for connecting automatically to the sound server. I'm not interested in that, since I can do it via terminal with PULSE_SERVER variable. the problem is that even though the sound works for a moment as I want it to, it cuts out.

The tcp module for pulseaudio access on the network is also set correctly for my needs:

root@eocserver:~# grep tcp /etc/pulse/default.pa 
#load-module module-esound-protocol-tcp
load-module module-native-protocol-tcp auth-ip-acl=127.0.0.0/16;192.168.0.0/24
root@eocserver:~#

[BrianMicek]

...
paprefs doesn't work on the server for some reason,
...

This might be good news, can you run "paman"? Specifically, we are interested in if you can contact the server and then if the server sees any devices other than the NULL-sink

[zeroth]

This might be good news, can you run "paman"? Specifically, we are interested in if you can contact the server and then if the server sees any devices other than the NULL-sink

yes, and it appears that it does:

[zeroth]

holy crap, it works. I have no idea why, must have been some package update or soemthing. but now... it just. plain. works.

*joy*

edit: even watchinv a movie with VLC, there is no sound lag. this is amazing!