Pulseaudio has worked for me and continues to work on multiple devices on 14.2 and on -current. Although, I do not do any high end audio editing and all my devices have integrated audio and video. I regularly use my phone as a Bluetooth A2DP source. With the A2DP source enabled, I can hear sounds/music/voice from my phone and my laptop at the same time. My monitor has an audio jack in it where I connect my speakers, which is connected to my laptop HDMI port, and HDMI audio works. My wireless USB headset is recognized and works just fine as well.

When switching devices I just have to change the audio or voice source in the pavucontrol utility launched using xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin. I've not encountered any of the bugs mentioned in this thread or any other pulseaudio thread in this forum.

3 members found this post helpful.

While I have no issues with Pulse Audio on my machines, I do sympathize with those who may have special audio requirements which Pulse Audio doesn't play nicely with. However my eyes glaze over whenever I see the Poettering card played like this.

chris

2 members found this post helpful.

Apparently bluetooth no longer requires Pulse but I'm not certain about that because I haven't looked into it deeply since I neither have nor plan to have any bluetooth devices.

1 members found this post helpful.

Of course I realize your response was not directed at me but since I also would enjoy removal of pulse and have stated my case in this tread regarding pulseaudio I "have a dog in this race" and my response to you was simply to ask if you were seriously just "blowing off" any such concerns from anyone. That is allowed, isn't it?

1 members found this post helpful.

FWIW I have stated that I understand pulse fills a niche that some find useful but others clearly do not fit in that niche. I also understand that onboard audio is good enough for many if not most people but I do semi-pro audio work and the sound system on my PC is worth almost $2000.00 USD and I am not being snarky nor exaggerating that pulseaudio degrades it's performance. Different strokes...right?

2 members found this post helpful.

Thank you for this, Eric, and it is so that I am not running current but I don't see how running current can solve at least one incontrovertible issue with pulse - extreme latency by the standards of any serious DAW work compared with ALSA-only.

I can't quote real numbers but I'm pretty sure that yours is the niche use case, not the many/most users who find PulseAudio useful or, at least, no problem.

chris

1 members found this post helpful.

I'm running -current on multiple boxes, no issues at all.

1 members found this post helpful.

No need for numbers since I'm sure most are aware that far more people simply accept onboard audio preferring to spend not one dime more for what already "works ok". The number of motherboards sold compared to the number of soundcards sold should speak to that, so no contest, in that regard, yes, I am the niche and not the mainstream. As for "useful or, at least, no problem" I imagine the same can be said of PAM, Avahi, systemd and a host of other arguably convenient but intrusive softwares even including auto dependency resolving package management. I actually have no problem if others choose to relinquish any level of power/responsibility that serve as steps toward a system that is just yet another "also ran" as long as I, or anyone else, is not forced to adopt them and has a way to opt out.

In all fairness and appreciation for the Slackware Community, especially here at LQN, I now, thanks to some assistance, have Pulseaudio on an acceptably tight leash, but it took many months with lots of research, trial and error and near daily problems to get here. I don't desire that Pulse be excluded which would negatively affect those that like it but I would like that the choice be considerably simpler and direct, let alone possible.

2 members found this post helpful.

Why can't you be the one to step up and provide the solution for the community? Document the process (on docs.slackware.com) of disabling pulseaudio on 14.2. I've seen more noise from you on the subject than action to contribute to bettering the alsa v.s. pulseaudio discussion. Furthermore, I do not think that many people are experiencing pulseaudio problems, as you describe. Louder complaints, does not always equal greater numbers.

To get you started, there are two pulseaudio Slackware docs.

You can find them here:
pulseaudio
pulseaudio_non-default

In fact, one discuses briefly a process to disable pulseaudio. A great place to start:
removing_pulseaudio_completely

3 members found this post helpful.

I agree that PA like many of the products from the Red Hat stables are not easy to tame, but in Linux land, Slackware is the niche product nowadays. We should be lucky that we have been able to avoid systemd at all.

Is there a "definitive work" on the internet where this information has been collected for Slackware users - like on the Slack Docs Wiki - or is a "Pulse Audio configuration for DAW on Slackware" comprehensive article still missing? In which case I would be happy to see you write such an article on Slack Docs.
I am bordering on a decision to buy a USB sound card like the Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, because that still is fairly acceptible in price, and because I have no concept of the latency issues you are experiencing. I would have to be pointed to a real-life scenario that I can attemt to repeat at home.

7 members found this post helpful.

IMHO Slackware is doing just fine in this regard. As a distribution you need to look at what default configuration serves most of the users, and how to support edge cases in a maintainable way. Slackware has always been about choice and configurability and I do believe that that's still the case with pulseaudio. When we shipped it we made sure it's possible to switch back to using ALSA as default, and from what I can tell from the instructions on LQ on how to disable it, it mostly still works the same. Obviously, if anyone comes up with a suggestion for some package in order to improve edge-cases without impairing common use cases, we're all ears. Do note that plain "remove pulseaudio" or "make ALSA the default" requests likely won't reach the result you would like.

What would help is if someone actually sat down and properly documented the steps that are needed to do the switch from pulseaudio back to ALSA. No offense to the people on LQ, but finding tutorials on here is not really straightforward. Much better would be instructions on http://docs.slackware.com or http://slackwiki.com that could be linked to from here. Unfortunately currently neither has such an entry.

You're in a prime position to change that now, since you obviously care and have the steps fresh in your mind

7 members found this post helpful.

IF, as he should, a user does a full installation of Slackware64-current, PulseAudio will work "out of the box," no fuss, no muss. Nothing needs to be done by the user.
Over the years I have agreed with Enorbet on many subjects, but on the matter of PulseAudio I have to disagree.
I appreciate quality sound, but not owning any serious audio equipment I can only depend on my ears, and my ears tell me Pulse produces a superior sound.
It was several years ago, maybe 5 or 6 years ago, that I was having low volume problems. I don't remember the details, but I went looking for a solution and stumbled upon PulseAudio. Once I figured it out and had it properly installed the volume problem was solved and as a bonus multiple streams could play simultaneous.
This was with three....er... maybe four, different motherboards using the built-in audio.
YMMV

4 members found this post helpful.

Alsa sounds crisper to my ears. I like pulseaudio's volume control. I'm using alsa and for some strange reason bungling this line fixes audio artifacts in a game I've been playing: My audio setup is something I'm afraid to try and change because of that.

2 members found this post helpful.

It should, and for many it does, but sometimes it does not, for reasons which are yet to be determined.

For a while my hypothesis was that differences in hardware were somehow leading to different results despite hardware abstraction, but then someone (wish I'd bookmarked the post) said he had identical installations on identical hardware, and one exhibited audio problems while the other did not.

That blew the hardware differences hypothesis out of the water. I have no idea, now, why PA misbehaves for some people, and that makes me exceedingly wary of it.

1 members found this post helpful.