The KDE vs. GNOME Schism In Free Software

[ninez]

Gnome 3 -> Requires Pulseaudio, end of the story. A dependency like this one is just non sense for a desktop environment period.

You do realize it takes all of about 1 minute to disable pulseaudio permanently in gnome 3 right?!??!? lol.

While I agree (for me) PA is a waste of time, but some people do find it useful. I don't use it because i am a proaudio linux user, and PA is useless to me, since I am using Jackd 100% of the time (Jackd starts up on boot).

anyay, Yes, PA gets pulled into G3 ~ but to sum things up, it is easily disabled.

[Ragas]

You do realize it takes all of about 1 minute to disable pulseaudio permanently in gnome 3 right?!??!? lol.

While I agree (for me) PA is a waste of time, but some people do find it useful. I don't use it because i am a proaudio linux user, and PA is useless to me, since I am using Jackd 100% of the time (Jackd starts up on boot).

anyay, Yes, PA gets pulled into G3 ~ but to sum things up, it is easily disabled.

So when it's so easy to disable. Why is it a hard dependency in gnome3?

It kinda requires me to install and figure out how to disable a Software I will never use.

[ninez]

So when it's so easy to disable. Why is it a hard dependency in gnome3?

It was a design choice, by the developers. Basically, linux has always been plagued by multiple soundservers, esd, OSS, ALSA, etc. But slowly PA has emerged, as it provides better functionality as a server, than ALSA does. (makes it easier to run multiple audio apps, with mixing, allows networked audio, etc). Gnome developers did not want to have their Desktop to have to maintain a bunch of different sound APIs, and they think PA is the best current solution, for them. So they went with that. I've actually discussed this with some of the Gnome developers, as like you i am not a fan of PA.

in the end, it is what it is. PA is not hard to disable, so it's not a big problem.

It kinda requires me to install and figure out how to disable a Software I will never use.

Yes, it does. unfortunately.

I don't have a link off-hand, but basically there are only a few quick edits to do to disable PA.

1. you have change /etc/asound.conf to point to your card and not PA

it should look someting like this, after

pcm.card0 {
    type hw
    card 0
}
ctl.card0 {
    type hw
    card 0
}

2. you have to disable PA's 'Autospawn' feature, which is defined in pulse.conf - i believe (can't remember where it''s located). you could probably just google 'pulseaudio + disable autospawn' and find the solution/steps.

3. you need to open your 'startup applications', and make sure Pulseaudio is not set to start on boot

Then what i do anytime i get a PA update;

sudo rm /usr/bin/pulseaudio

that way if an update touched one of my files, it doesn't matter ~ PA can't execute, because it doesn't even exist. It's probably redundant, though.

[Ragas]

Yes, it does. unfortunately.

I don't have a link off-hand, but basically there are only a few quick edits to do to disable PA.

1. you have change /etc/asound.conf to point to your card and not PA

it should look someting like this, after

pcm.card0 {
    type hw
    card 0
}
ctl.card0 {
    type hw
    card 0
}

2. you have to disable PA's 'Autospawn' feature, which is defined in pulse.conf - i believe (can't remember where it''s located). you could probably just google 'pulseaudio + disable autospawn' and find the solution/steps.

3. you need to open your 'startup applications', and make sure Pulseaudio is not set to start on boot

Then what i do anytime i get a PA update;

sudo rm /usr/bin/pulseaudio

that way if an update touched one of my files, it doesn't matter ~ PA can't execute, because it doesn't even exist. It's probably redundant, though.

Jeah i know how to disable it. the Problem is that I still need to install it just because Gnome is too stupid to have a flag that disables Pulseaudio Support.
I'm a Gentoo user so I don't like useless stuff on my hard drive.

[ninez]

Jeah i know how to disable it. the Problem is that I still need to install it just because Gnome is too stupid to have a flag that disables Pulseaudio Support.

I'm a Gentoo user so I don't like useless stuff on my hard drive.

Well, i am sure you have other crap on your disk, that probably takes up 20X the space of PA;

*pulseaudio takes up 5.3mb installed*

no joke, dude. lol.

Anyway, i know for fact, that Gnome-Shell source code has a flag for disabling building PA support. Chances are that other parts of gnome that support/require PA, might also have an option to disable it from being compiled in the first place....it might be worth a look. - For me no, but maybe for you.

[BlackStar]

I installed Arch/KDE with pure ALSA (no pulseaudio for a change). The result? atrocious sound quality, CPU usage and latency, applications bypassing the mixer and hogging the output sink, a fucking nightmare.

Two days later, I installed pulse and guess what? Sound quality and CPU usage improved instantly, latency fell, and applications suddenly started cooperating. I installed a single package and my sound started working!

Pulseaudio is the solution we were always waiting for. Linux audio sucks without it.

[ninez]

I installed Arch/KDE with pure ALSA (no pulseaudio for a change). The result? atrocious sound quality, CPU usage and latency, applications bypassing the mixer and hogging the output sink, a fucking nightmare.

1. Odd, on any linux system i have ever used/installed, Pa uses more resources than ALSA, not only that PA does NOT produce lower latency than ALSA, it's not even in PA's design/spec to be a low latency sound server. to get PA to work at lower latencies it costs more CPU cycles vs. ALSA, and that is quite factual. - try actually configuring PA to work at the lowest latency and then compare it with ALSA (properly working) - I've done this before PA can almost keep up but at much higher CPU usage.

Typically, PA by default buffers the audio longer, for that 'glitch-free' audio experience, as the hype was a few years ago - which AFAIK larger buffer equals more latency, not less. To me, it sounds like ALSA wasn't configured properly.

2. Sound Quality - AFAIK - PA doesn't improve your sound quality, your soundcard supports what it supports, as definition is concerned. ie: 16bit/44100 24/96000, etc. There should be no difference *whatsoever* in sound quality between ALSA, PA, Jack, etc using the exact same card. Again, it sounds like something was improperly configured.

3. mixing, i can totally agree with ALSA/dmix can be a pain.

Two days later, I installed pulse and guess what? Sound quality and CPU usage improved instantly, latency fell, and applications suddenly started cooperating. I installed a single package and my sound started working!

Have a look through the Archlinux forums, and see just how many people who have had nothing but problems with PA. In some cases, for them - it is the exact opposite - disable pulseaudio and sound works perfectly. It really depends on what you want, and how you want to use it. Also, you say latency 'fell' - can you actually provide any data to support this claim,? because it really does sound like this is either BS or you just think it was lower latency, based on what, observation?

again, PA is not designed with low-latency in mind. it's design it centered around powerful mixing capabilities, portability, networking audio, and providing a glitch-free audio experience, as in no 'clicks' or 'pops' (which requires more frames/higher latency).

Pulseaudio is the solution we were always waiting for. Linux audio sucks without it.

Speak for yourself. I think PA is essentially junk, it just gets in the way, and not really upto snuff at all - and i am not the only one who thinks so, if you ever talk to Wine Devs, there is a reason the don't officially support PA, mainly because it has a harder time keeping up in Windows/Wine audio than ALSA, OSS or Jack. ie: it is not as low latency as the other drivers/servers.

But hey, I am an Audiophile. Use Both Mac and Linux Platforms/ ie: write music, play multiple instruments, sing and have a Archlinux-based Audio Workstation/Rackmount ...

Yet, even on my desktop PC - PA is disabled.

[BlackStar]

@ninez: my browser crashed while replying and there's no way I'm typing my whole reply again. However:

(a) the PA resampler is more efficient than whatever dmix uses.
(b) the PA resampler offers better quality (and a huge selection of settings for quality vs speed)
(c) the PA mixer is more efficient than dmix (timer-based scheduling for one).

In short, better quality and lower CPU usage out of the box. For the CPU usage you get with dmix, you can use PA and achieve lower latency.

For me, the turning point was when I tried to use a MIDI keyboard with pure ALSA. Impossible! I had to decide between 200ms latency (dmix) or audio dropouts (direct hw access and multiple applications - e.g. the MIDI keyboard and a metronome).

The solution? Pulseaudio. A trivial configuration change and I get 20ms latency - and that's on a netbook, of all things! And just with that I have multiple applications working, seamless switching between headphones and HDMI (digital out to dedicated sound system) and dynamic source->sink routing (music on speakers and communications on headphones? Done.)

ALSA without PA feels like a Win98 system - it works but it's impossible to do anything remotely complex without it going belly up. I guess some users may be ok with that, but there's no way I'm ever going back. Hell, even OpenWRT routers offer PA now - consider that for a moment!

[bwat47]

I installed Arch/KDE with pure ALSA (no pulseaudio for a change). The result? atrocious sound quality, CPU usage and latency, applications bypassing the mixer and hogging the output sink, a fucking nightmare.

Two days later, I installed pulse and guess what? Sound quality and CPU usage improved instantly, latency fell, and applications suddenly started cooperating. I installed a single package and my sound started working!

Pulseaudio is the solution we were always waiting for. Linux audio sucks without it.

Yeah, personally I've had no problems with it, and its only been an improvement. A lot of distros included it to early when it was super buggy, but much of the hate for it these days is ridiculous.

[curaga]

If that's the case, the right option would be improving dmix's algorithm, not starting Yet Another Daemon.