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Old 01-19-2017, 04:42 PM   #16
rkelsen
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Southern Gorilla View Post
I've spent weeks studying Pulse and Alsa trying to sort out how to get my system set the way I want it.
Yep. I did exactly the same thing when 14.2 was released.

I'm a long time Slacker who pines for the good ol' days of Slackware 7.0 to 11.0. Linux 2.2 to 2.4, static devs, manual mounting of removable media, OSS, full installations under 3 gigs... These are some of the features I miss. I'm a retrogrouch and proud of it.

Over time, I've come to appreciate the fact that one of the truly great things about Slackware is that it works properly. You can do anything with it. The quality of the workmanship in collating, compiling and testing Slackware is one of it's stand-out features. You can bet your last dollar that anything which is included on the installation disc/s will work 100% as it should.

... So why was I working so hard to try and break it? What is so bad about PA that it justifies weeks/months of re-compiles, the end result of which is a less functional system?

Life has certainly been more peaceful for me since I learned to tolerate PulseAudio.
 
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Old 01-19-2017, 05:15 PM   #17
garpu
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Southern Gorilla View Post
I believe the documentation on the JACK site shows how you can run JACK without even disabling PA. But I could be mistaken. I've read so much lately that it all blurs together. I've tried unsuccessfully to add JACK to my system so I could experiment with it as well.
That's the preferred method for CCRMA's distro. I'm told pulseaudio is less annoying than it used to be, but it's still awful for real time synthesis. I've never had much luck with it, and never liked the sound quality. (Pulse is also a pain to set up with my sound card--a Delta 1010LT. It just works with ALSA and .asoundrc.) JACk is powerful, but it can also be a pain to set up. It really shines if you're using a low-latency kernel with it.

But it's definitely an interesting thought experiment to see how far one can tweak Slackware. That's why I stick with it throughout the years--you can do anything you want, and the distro doesn't stand in your way.
 
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Old 01-19-2017, 05:27 PM   #18
Drakeo
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you know pat made pulse audio seemless in Slacware. he did it with the KISS method. Butt up head in the dirt. I do so much with media and many media programs I have contributed to. Slackware is a tool Pat cleaned up a good tool for the distro. Learn to use the Operating System. you want pulse off it is a simple command
 
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Old 01-19-2017, 05:35 PM   #19
Southern Gorilla
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rkelsen View Post
Yep. I did exactly the same thing when 14.2 was released.

I'm a long time Slacker who pines for the good ol' days of Slackware 7.0 to 11.0. Linux 2.2 to 2.4, static devs, manual mounting of removable media, OSS, full installations under 3 gigs... These are some of the features I miss. I'm a retrogrouch and proud of it.

Over time, I've come to appreciate the fact that one of the truly great things about Slackware is that it works properly. You can do anything with it. The quality of the workmanship in collating, compiling and testing Slackware is one of it's stand-out features. You can bet your last dollar that anything which is included on the installation disc/s will work 100% as it should.

... So why was I working so hard to try and break it? What is so bad about PA that it justifies weeks/months of re-compiles, the end result of which is a less functional system?

Life has certainly been more peaceful for me since I learned to tolerate PulseAudio.
From a strictly functional perspective, I have never gotten my multimedia keys to work under PA. They worked fine on my previous distro when they were still based on Slackware 14.1. But when they moved to 14.2 the keys broke and all the reconfiguring in the world never got them back. It sure got a lot of helpful comments on the forum though, "mine work"....
My desire to remove PA comes down to a touch of OCD. I don't like things hanging about when they aren't doing anything. PA never improved the sound or added any functionality to my system. So I don't need it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by garpu View Post
That's the preferred method for CCRMA's distro. I'm told pulseaudio is less annoying than it used to be, but it's still awful for real time synthesis. I've never had much luck with it, and never liked the sound quality. (Pulse is also a pain to set up with my sound card--a Delta 1010LT. It just works with ALSA and .asoundrc.) JACk is powerful, but it can also be a pain to set up. It really shines if you're using a low-latency kernel with it.

But it's definitely an interesting thought experiment to see how far one can tweak Slackware. That's why I stick with it throughout the years--you can do anything you want, and the distro doesn't stand in your way.
I'll be giving JACK another try at some point. I think it will offer me some fun new toys to experiment with.

Tweaking things is an obsession with me. My wife teases me that I "can't just 'use' a computer like normal people". And she's right. But I take that as a compliment.

By way of an update; I finished recompiling MPlayer and it does now start without PA. I can't get it to play a CD though. It keeps throwing some sort of 'IO error'. Since I wasn't sitting here watching the compile process I don't know if there was an error there or if I just don't know how to use MPlayer. Does it do audio? Or is the "M" for "movie"?
 
Old 01-19-2017, 05:37 PM   #20
Southern Gorilla
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakeo View Post
Learn to use the Operating System. you want pulse off it is a simple command
Right, "removepkg".
 
Old 01-19-2017, 06:02 PM   #21
rkelsen
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Southern Gorilla View Post
From a strictly functional perspective, I have never gotten my multimedia keys to work under PA. They worked fine on my previous distro when they were still based on Slackware 14.1. But when they moved to 14.2 the keys broke and all the reconfiguring in the world never got them back.
Surely that's a keyboard problem, and nothing to do with sound drivers?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Southern Gorilla View Post
My desire to remove PA comes down to a touch of OCD. I don't like things hanging about when they aren't doing anything. PA never improved the sound or added any functionality to my system. So I don't need it.
Technically, that's not right. PA is an integral part of the sound system in Slackware now. As you've found, removing it is a non-trivial exercise.

I think from a practical standpoint, it'd make more sense for you to build upon & update a 14.1 installation than starting with 14.2 and trying to cut it back. There are many things you're missing, and your 'solution' is far from complete.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Southern Gorilla View Post
Tweaking things is an obsession with me.
I'm not trying to discourage you. Keep at it. :-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Southern Gorilla View Post
By way of an update; I finished recompiling MPlayer and it does now start without PA. I can't get it to play a CD though. It keeps throwing some sort of 'IO error'.
My bet is that you still have other libraries which were linked to PA.
 
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Old 01-19-2017, 06:28 PM   #22
GazL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakeo View Post
Learn to use the Operating System. you want pulse off it is a simple command
Actually it's editing half a dozen or so config files and/or setting a few environment variables dependent on what programs you use, but yes, it's doable without having to go to the trouble of uninstalling and rebuilding stuff.

Whether it's worth doing or not I guess depends on whether pulse is causing you problems or not. If you only ever use a single login id and don't have any specific latency requirements then pulse will probably work just fine for you.

I have encountered issues where the pulseaudio daemons belonging to two separate concurrent users start to contend for control of the underlying alsa devices: one usually blocks, but I have seen them get their knickers in a twist on rare occasions and require cleaning up to restore sound functionality. Running pulse on top of alsa dmix devices rather than letting it use the sound cards directly seems to be the best workaround for that scenario. It seems a bit ugly running a mixer on top of a mixer but better that than having it fall in a heap. I really wish they'd gone for a system-wide daemon design rather than this per-user stuff, but that's what we have, and we have to live with it.

BTW, wasn't there a news article last week about Mozilla dropping alsa support from their official firefox builds? Not using pulse is going to be increasingly difficult now that it's assumed you'll be using it.
 
Old 01-19-2017, 08:18 PM   #23
the3dfxdude
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GazL View Post
BTW, wasn't there a news article last week about Mozilla dropping alsa support from their official firefox builds? Not using pulse is going to be increasingly difficult now that it's assumed you'll be using it.
I read up on this and all that happened is they no longer support ALSA in their official builds. Whatever that means. It's still available if you build it yourself and still works. See the end of the bug report:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bu...d=1247056#c180

The strangest part is from this discussion rationalizing why:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?_es...rm/jRAqSTri66I
Quote:
The most problematic backend across all platforms is ALSA. It is also missing full duplex support. We are intending to add multichannel (5.1) support across all platforms and the ones that don’t make the cut will be the ALSA backend and the WinMM backend used on Windows XP.

Our ALSA backend has fallen behind in features, it is buggy and difficult to fix. PulseAudio is contrastingly low maintenance.
Something doesn't seem quite right here. ALSA has fallen behind in features, (they want 5.1 sound), but PulseAudio uses ALSA behind the scenes. So the issue is not features. It's support. I think they are hinging on PulseAudio being better because it is "multiplatform", therefore, less work. Maybe ALSA API is complicated? But if that were the case, I think the pulseaudio people would be trying to kick it out of the way and say it is dead, but ALSA is clearly not dead, and they are not doing that.
 
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Old 01-19-2017, 09:59 PM   #24
Southern Gorilla
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rkelsen View Post
Surely that's a keyboard problem, and nothing to do with sound drivers?
I don't know. It worked before the upgrade to 14.1, it didn't work after the upgrade. Xev still recognized the keys but they didn't do anything.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rkelsen View Post
Technically, that's not right. PA is an integral part of the sound system in Slackware now. As you've found, removing it is a non-trivial exercise.
I'd say it's only integral to some components. And those components may not be essential to everybody. Removing PA doesn't break the audio stack itself. I agree it's a non-trivial exercise. I don't think that alone makes it problematic though. We all do plenty of non-trivial things with our computers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rkelsen View Post
I think from a practical standpoint, it'd make more sense for you to build upon & update a 14.1 installation than starting with 14.2 and trying to cut it back. There are many things you're missing, and your 'solution' is far from complete.
That's an excellent idea. I don't know why that hadn't occurred to me. I'm already planning to reinstall to remove KDE. It would be fairly trivial to install 14.1 instead. What is missing from what I posted? Other than I forgot the details about removing the 'pulse' user?

Quote:
Originally Posted by rkelsen View Post
I'm not trying to discourage you. Keep at it. :-)
I have no doubts of your sincerity.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rkelsen View Post
My bet is that you still have other libraries which were linked to PA.
Maybe. I saw enough of the configure readout to see that MPlayer did build without PA support. But that doesn't mean that something else MPlayer uses doesn't still need PA. But, it could also be a completely unrelated problem.

Quote:
Originally Posted by the3dfxdude View Post
Something doesn't seem quite right here. ALSA has fallen behind in features, (they want 5.1 sound), but PulseAudio uses ALSA behind the scenes. So the issue is not features. It's support. I think they are hinging on PulseAudio being better because it is "multiplatform", therefore, less work. Maybe ALSA API is complicated? But if that were the case, I think the pulseaudio people would be trying to kick it out of the way and say it is dead, but ALSA is clearly not dead, and they are not doing that.
That's what really annoys me about all this. I've seen people rave about how much better the sound is with PA and I want to shake them and say, "the sound is from ALSA, not PA". ALSA still does all the work, PA is just a daemon that coordinates things.

I'll search this weekend to find the site where I got that asoundrc file in the OP. If you notice, it has code commented out to allow 5.1 sound if you have those channels. The site went into more detail about setting up 5.1 with ALSA. So, yeah, Firefox didn't need to drop ALSA to get 5.1.

I've also seen that there are Haskell bindings for ALSA and folks doing quite a bit of interesting things with computers and music via those bindings. ALSA is hardly dead. But I think the ALSA devs are doing themselves a great disservice by not creating more and better documentation. I have no idea what modules are available, how to tie modules together, or any of the other details that go into writing a coherent configuration. And somebody mentioned here that you don't even really need those config files for ALSA to run. If that's the case, what controls ALSA?

If I can get GHC and the Haskell platform installed my first goal is going to be working on how to build something to compete with PA. Now there's a non-trivial exercise.
 
Old 01-19-2017, 10:20 PM   #25
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Well, if you "removepkg" pulseaudio then you'll also have to rebuild the packages that were built against it. Which ones were those? Well, the changelog entry for Pulseaudio's addition is Jan 13, here:

http://ftp.oregonstate.edu/pub/slack.../ChangeLog.txt

I recommend using that changelog entry and tools such as ldd to determine which packages are in that list.
 
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Old 01-19-2017, 10:21 PM   #26
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Double post

Last edited by dugan; 01-19-2017 at 10:24 PM.
 
Old 01-19-2017, 11:14 PM   #27
Southern Gorilla
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dugan View Post
Well, if you "removepkg" pulseaudio then you'll also have to rebuild the packages that were built against it. Which ones were those? Well, the changelog entry for Pulseaudio's addition is Jan 13, here:

http://ftp.oregonstate.edu/pub/slack.../ChangeLog.txt

I recommend using that changelog entry and tools such as ldd to determine which packages are in that list.
That's not necessarily the case, as I noted in the OP. I did "removepkg" Pulseaudio and I did not have to rebuild any of the things that I use. I'm not saying that will hold true for everybody. But Firefox and Audacious both work fine without PA even though I did not rebuild either of them. I did rebuild ALSA. But that wasn't out of necessity so much as my own concern that ALSA may have been configured differently for PA. I did have to rebuild MPlayer. Well, I didn't "have" to since I don't use it. But I did because somebody else mentioned it so I decided to see if it would work. I'm certain other things would have to be rebuilt and that some things, like Bluez, simply will not work without PA.
 
Old 01-20-2017, 02:50 AM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dugan View Post
Well, if you "removepkg" pulseaudio then you'll also have to rebuild the packages that were built against it. Which ones were those? Well, the changelog entry for Pulseaudio's addition is Jan 13, here:

http://ftp.oregonstate.edu/pub/slack.../ChangeLog.txt

I recommend using that changelog entry and tools such as ldd to determine which packages are in that list.
I recommend this too, someone posted a depend checker here quite some time ago, I think it was orbea who shared it, thanks.

Quote:
Code:
#!/bin/bash
#
# depcheck.sh
#
# This script is a very basic dependency checker for Slackware Linux. It scans
# all the binaries in the PATH and reports any missing libraries.

for DIRECTORY in $(echo $PATH | sed 's/:/ /g'); do
  for FILE in $DIRECTORY/*; do
    if [ $(file -b $FILE | cut -d' ' -f1) == 'ELF' ]; then
      if ldd $FILE | grep -q 'not found'; then
         echo "$FILE"
         ldd $FILE | grep 'not found' | awk '{print "Not found:", $1}'
      fi
    fi
  done
done
 
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Old 01-20-2017, 03:58 AM   #29
Southern Gorilla
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Originally Posted by elcore View Post
I recommend this too, someone posted a depend checker here quite some time ago, I think it was orbea who shared it, thanks.
I had a depcheck script on my previous distro, very handy. Thank you very much for posting that.
 
Old 01-20-2017, 06:26 AM   #30
Southern Gorilla
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Quote:
Originally Posted by the3dfxdude View Post
I read up on this and all that happened is they no longer support ALSA in their official builds. Whatever that means. It's still available if you build it yourself and still works. See the end of the bug report:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bu...d=1247056#c180

The strangest part is from this discussion rationalizing why:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?_es...rm/jRAqSTri66I


Something doesn't seem quite right here. ALSA has fallen behind in features, (they want 5.1 sound), but PulseAudio uses ALSA behind the scenes. So the issue is not features. It's support. I think they are hinging on PulseAudio being better because it is "multiplatform", therefore, less work. Maybe ALSA API is complicated? But if that were the case, I think the pulseaudio people would be trying to kick it out of the way and say it is dead, but ALSA is clearly not dead, and they are not doing that.
I found some of the information I was looking for on the subject of 5.1 in ALSA. Thought I'd pass it along.
 
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