PulseAudio 6.0 Gains Systemd Socket Activation Support, BlueZ 5 Features

[phoronix]

Phoronix: PulseAudio 6.0 Gains Systemd Socket Activation Support, BlueZ 5 Features

Nearly one year after the release of PulseAudio 5.0, the release of PulseAudio 6.0 is finally here with many changes...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=PulseAudio-6.0-Released

[nerdopolis]

Multiple instances of JACK sinks and sources

Previously it was not possible to load two instances of module-jack-sink or module-jack-source. That limitation was entirely artificial and didn't make much sense, so the limitation has now been removed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it now sounds like PulseAudio can better integrate with a system that has a JACK server with multiple sound devices? That's pretty cool.

[Anvil]

AFAIK, i think Fedora intends to use gstreamer as there default sound server, not Pulseaudio, im pretty sure KDE uses gstreamer now as there default sound server

[mark45]

AFAIK, i think Fedora intends to use gstreamer as there default sound server, not Pulseaudio, im pretty sure KDE uses gstreamer now as there default sound server

I think gstreamer runs on top of PulseAudio, can also run on top of ALSA, but it can't replace them. IIRC gstreamer can replace KDE's Phonon server, for a while Qt (5?) defaulted to gstreamer or phonon ran on top of gstreamer, something like that.

gstreamer is about playing sounds and video, using codecs and stuff, while PulseAudio and ALSA are about the sound drivers themselves and the low level sound server.

[caligula]

Does it work as an AirPlay sink now without flooding the network?

[nanonyme]

I think gstreamer runs on top of PulseAudio, can also run on top of ALSA, but it can't replace them. IIRC gstreamer can replace KDE's Phonon server, for a while Qt (5?) defaulted to gstreamer or phonon ran on top of gstreamer, something like that.

gstreamer is about playing sounds and video, using codecs and stuff, while PulseAudio and ALSA are about the sound drivers themselves and the low level sound server.

Well, PA is about userspace interfaces to sound drivers. ALSA is that as well bug it also is the kernel sound drivers that PA uses

[Serafean]

I think gstreamer runs on top of PulseAudio, can also run on top of ALSA, but it can't replace them. IIRC gstreamer can replace KDE's Phonon server, for a while Qt (5?) defaulted to gstreamer or phonon ran on top of gstreamer, something like that.

gstreamer is about playing sounds and video, using codecs and stuff, while PulseAudio and ALSA are about the sound drivers themselves and the low level sound server.

Just to clarify, the only "server" is PulseAudio. The rest are libraries. in KDE, to play back a multimedia file, it goes like this :

Phonon -> phonon backend (VLC, gstreamer...) -> pulseaudio -> ALSA -> Speakers.

[Daktyl198]

AFAIK, i think Fedora intends to use gstreamer as there default sound server, not Pulseaudio, im pretty sure KDE uses gstreamer now as there default sound server

As somebody else said, gstreamer is a "sound-playing library", not a "sound server". Applications can hook into gstreamer for a stupidly simple interface into the codecs and the sound server without having to write one themselves.
iirc, gstreamer has always been the default "sound library" on Gnome-based distros. KDE uses a second layer called "Phonon" that sits on top of other libraries (e.g. gstreamer, vlc). As for what it uses by default, the only article I can find on phoronix mentioning a switch in defaults is away from gstreamer onto VLC (making the vlc backend the default).

[nanonyme]

As somebody else said, gstreamer is a "sound-playing library", not a "sound server". Applications can hook into gstreamer for a stupidly simple interface into the codecs and the sound server without having to write one themselves.
iirc, gstreamer has always been the default "sound library" on Gnome-based distros. KDE uses a second layer called "Phonon" that sits on top of other libraries (e.g. gstreamer, vlc). As for what it uses by default, the only article I can find on phoronix mentioning a switch in defaults is away from gstreamer onto VLC (making the vlc backend the default).

Yeah, I guess the golden media framework would just when given input figure codec, whether to hardware decode, which renderer to use etc. Allows a player to focus on looking native and less on playback. Not sure if gstreamer is quite that far but it has afaik transparent hardware decoding

[davcri]

I remember that, back in november, the developers were talking about a hi-fi mode. Any news about it ?