Slackware has disappointed me ;-)
 

I suppose the honeymoon had to end sometime!

Some background: I don't usually have sound on my systems and I know precious little about how to use it. Actually I prefer to work in silence. But I decided to try using alsa in the hope that it would help me troubleshoot a problem a friend of mine has been having with sound on her machine.

I quickly discovered that aplay and alsamixer will not work in Slack without some plugin called libpulse, which turns out to be part of pulseaudio. Pulseaudio?? That comes from the same stable as systemd. It's really not the kind of thing I expected to find on Slackware. What happened to the KISS principle?

And when I installed it (and carefully tracked down and installed all the extra libraries it needs) I found that I can't actually use it except as root. If I try as myself I get:
And I really had been congratulating myself on having found such a congenial and friendly distro.:(

Postscript: I've at least solved the access problem. There was some kind of discrepancy involving groups. When I used the groups command, it told me I was a member of the audio group but when I listed /etc/groups, my name wasn't there. I added it and now I can use aplay and alsamixer without going to root. But I still am annoyed at the requirement to run a pulseaudio daemon just to make sound work.

If you're really against Pulse audio you can check out the /extra directory on your Slackware installation media. I believe this is an addition in Slackware-current. There's a directory called pure-alsa-system; check out the readme.

Pulseaudio was added to 14.2 mostly because programs like bluez now require it. However with the next release you will be able to remove pulseaudio if you choose too. see this post from the development branch changelog...

If one does the recommended "complete installation," pulse works out of the box, no configuration necessary.
I'm not a fan of what's-his-name, but years ago, before PulseAudio was included in Slackware, I found it was the only thing available that fixed a problem I was having and I've been using it ever since.
As hitest pointed out, you don't have to use pulse and the instructions and related files can be found here,
http://slackware.oregonstate.edu/sla...e-alsa-system/

Edit in: Oops! I see Daedra is faster on the keyboard than I.
:)

Way to go! But you can't mix releases, can you. I'll read this up, then I'll be ready when the new release that everyone seems to be talking about finally appears. I'm glad I still do have a choice. Sort of restores your faith in human nature ;)

Hello,

1. Slackware is guaranteed to work as expected (all dependencies being included) only if fully installed. Period. If you made a partial installation, you should not complain that it doesn't.
2. Slackware version 14.2 ships with a file /etc/asound.conf with this content:
   Code:

   ---

   # ALSA system-wide config file
# By default, redirect to PulseAudio:
pcm.default pulse
ctl.default pulse

   ---

   This makes pretty obvious that by default in this version ALSA relies on PulseAudio.
3. So, would you have made a full installation, amixer and aplay would have worked.
4. Still, you can have Alsa do not depend on PulseAudio: comment out all lines in /etc/asound.conf or just remove this file.
5. To complete your Slackware installation, if you could just type as root:
   Code:

   ---

   slackpkg update
slackpkg install slackware #or
slackpkg install slackware64

   ---

But be aware that this will install all packages, including those in kdei/. Maybe consider blacklisting the ones you do not want.
Also writing:you just repeat something you heard or read from people who don't know what they are speaking about.

So, I see no ground for your complaint about Slackware in your post. But of course you are free to use any other distribution.

Best regards,

Hello hazel
I doubt you have noticed since you prefer silence but I have several posts and even a couple of threads that chronicle my attempt to love Pulseaudio, failure and subsequent hatred of all things Pulse. It presents far more problems for me than systemd does on any test distro I've tried. That said, it actually does perform an important job unlike systemd especially for those not seeking audiophile performance and just like to hear background music, movies, and possibly system alert sounds. I successfully managed to dump Pulseaudio altogether on 14.2 but it was not 1-2-3 just like with Current. Part of that is because the initial push for Pulse on Slackware was due to Bluetooth software that had a hard dependency for PA. It is my understanding that is no longer the case which is a major part of why Pat V is offering the option with Current and the next full release of ALSA-only operation. However if one wants sound in Firefox one must stick with the ESR version since anything newer has created a hard dependency on PA.

So most likely the best solution for you, at least on 14.2 and probably from now on (unless something else competes with PA as a "symphonic conductor") is to just go with PA as it does make things easier for those who have only minor casual interest in PC audio. As usual Pat V does a superb job of walking the tightrope between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Unless you start firefox like this:Source: https://github.com/i-rinat/apulse

Isn't this only the case if you use the pre-compiled binary from Mozilla? I know building it is not the easiest thing, but surely that removes the dependency of pulse, right?

could it be a group permission issue?

Hazel, have patience, if you're going to use a "non mainstream" distro then you shant be so quick to quit. Plenty of people here willing to help, even PV himself!

That's my understanding.

I am so glad that Slackware disappointed the OP by adopting the PulseAudio!

Because I remember with sadness the 14.0 days, when I had to spend more than a week investigating, reading and writing scripts, just to struggle with the switching between some no-name headphones, with USB digital link, and the main speakers. Honestly, I was at a step away from switching to a more traditional distro.

Fortunately, today is just a matter of plug and listen - thank you, Mr. Volkerding!

It is a huge step forward, in my humble opinion, even that's not so appreciated by the old ladies.

How do you expect mediation between differing programs that all want to send sound to an output device to happen? Something has to do it in a multitasking system. There used to be ESD, aRts, and Phonon (well, that's an API that uses various backends like GStreamer and VLC). I'm too lazy to look up more, but I remember using those 3 at one point or another.

Yes! The /extra/pure-alsa-system feature is one of the reasons I'm holding out for 15.0 to upgrade my laptop from Slackware 14.1.