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PulseAudio, even though it's hated by quite a few people for breaking stuff, is incredibly useful (when it works!). For example, it allows users (or programs, I suspect) to alter the sound levels of individual applications, alter the use of separate sound cards, stream media over a network, et cetera so on and so forth. This suggestion is to make use of some of these features, for example:
Simple audio access over a network (for example, streaming of Amarok/Juk audio, or streaming audio when Plasma's Now Playing widget is being shared on a network);
Automatic volume alteration (for example, muting notifications when Dragon is playing a full-screen video);
a Pavucontrol-like Pulseaudio mixer in KMix;
more cool stuff here.

I think PulseAudio has a lot of benefits that aren't being exposed fully to users, and yes, it does have problems - on the other hand, I don't see any other projects that are more mature and trying to give the same features and control as PulseAudio.

Pulseaudio is a feral beast that is not ready for the desktop yet.
That said any attempt to tame it and make it palatable to users is a good idea considering distros want to force-feed it.

I like to think of Pulseaudio as the KDE 4.0 of sound-servers. It's different and premature, but someone's got to do it sometime.

Lack of PulseAudio support is on my top-5 list of gripes with KDE. I've been forced to use GNOME on occasion because I've needed to arrange streams in a way that isn't possible in KDE, even with pavucontrol, because various KDE sound applications interfere and can't be controlled via Pulse.

I would actually support dropping Phonon completely and just using Pulse, but we all know that that isn't going to happen. It is still something to consider, since Pulse pretty much fills every function that Phonon provides today (different back ends (OSS, ALSA, Jack, etc), sound profiles, integration with gstreamer/xine) and it would be nice to remove yet another layer from the Linux sound stack.

A new volume control ?? la what the Fedora developers did would be nice enough, though. KMix is starting to become old by some standards, and it doesn't offer anything that a PulseAudio control couldn't do instead. There would of course still be those who would swear to ALSA and OSS (Not to mention KDE Windows users!) who still would need KMix, but that's to be expected, and the need would decrease with time (PA runs on Windows too, after all).

The new volume control would of course not be bound to PA alone, but would rather provide "hooks" that are activated if a backend is used that supports them (kinda like how PackageKit works I guess). So, if the random xine backend you're using doesn't support sound balancing or per-application volume management, the GUI won't show an option for it.

Huh? PulseAudio worked fine with me, I just couldn't access its features through KDE applications.

System Settings --> Multimedia --> click'n'drag "Audio input/output through PulseAudio" to the top and click, Apply Device List To..., applying to all. Change the inputs to "Audio input/output through PulseAudio" manually. Job's a good'n, haven't touched it since - and Pavucontrol lists individual KDE applications for volume-control as well.

Madman wrote:Huh? PulseAudio worked fine with me, I just couldn't access its features through KDE applications.

I can certainly get it to work with Phonon, that's not the issue. It's just that I can't get the more advanced features of PA to work at all if any KDE application uses PA while I'm trying. I mean for example setting a remote PA server as the main sink. Won't work, because KDE apps will always connect to the local PA server.

Oh! Didn't know that. Yeah, that's a problem.

I've also noticed something else, trying just now out of curiosity - I plugged in a combined USB mic/headphone, but it's not registered with PulseAudio - I can change the settings in Phonon configuration, but Pavucontrol isn't showing the USB set at all (I think it should, shouldn't it? O.o ).

I suppose my problem is comparatively moot anyway, because I can actually control the USB device through KMix instead, but I can still see why it would be an annoyance.

Madman wrote:I've also noticed something else, trying just now out of curiosity - I plugged in a combined USB mic/headphone, but it's not registered with PulseAudio - I can change the settings in Phonon configuration, but Pavucontrol isn't showing the USB set at all (I think it should, shouldn't it? O.o ).

That seems to be an ALSA issue that isn't PA-related.

And if it isn't, it might have something to do with the older PA volume control that Kubuntu uses. Take a look at the Fedora one - it supports all of the latest PA features.

Ah. It might be. I've not investigated very thoroughly - I just (naively) thought that Kubuntu was up-to-date with PA, but I should know better.

Try the mandriva 2010.1 alpha 1 it has some interesting additions to kmix

http://colin.guthr.ie/2010/01/mix-it-up/

Yes, that's actually quite ideal... if it could be finished off, with automatic switching between traditional and PA-enabled depending on Phonon (and stuff he lists there), then sent upstream, it would make for a very good start.

Argh, double post.

I had an idea that's related closely to this, it's currently in the awaiting verification stage. If you have time you should check it out.

dflemstr wrote:
I would actually support dropping Phonon completely and just using Pulse, but we all know that that isn't going to happen. It is still something to consider, since Pulse pretty much fills every function that Phonon provides today (different back ends (OSS, ALSA, Jack, etc), sound profiles, integration with gstreamer/xine) and it would be nice to remove yet another layer from the Linux sound stack.

Phonon is there because the linux sound stack is changing and some people have alsa some oss some pulseaudio but kde apps just want to play sound.
It is no more than a wrapper so I guess it doesn't add much latency.

It seems kmix pulseaudio integration is almost here:
http://colin.guthr.ie/2010/01/mix-it-up/
and I heard That system settings can support reading/writing pulseaudio device list don't know if it is implemented tough
so the only thing in that idea wich is not implemented would be the shared audio over network wich would be really nice

damipereira wrote:

dflemstr wrote:
I would actually support dropping Phonon completely and just using Pulse, but we all know that that isn't going to happen. It is still something to consider, since Pulse pretty much fills every function that Phonon provides today (different back ends (OSS, ALSA, Jack, etc), sound profiles, integration with gstreamer/xine) and it would be nice to remove yet another layer from the Linux sound stack.

Phonon is there because the linux sound stack is changing and some people have alsa some oss some pulseaudio but kde apps just want to play sound.
It is no more than a wrapper so I guess it doesn't add much latency.

It seems kmix pulseaudio integration is almost here:
http://colin.guthr.ie/2010/01/mix-it-up/
and I heard That system settings can support reading/writing pulseaudio device list don't know if it is implemented tough
so the only thing in that idea wich is not implemented would be the shared audio over network wich would be really nice

more news http://colin.guthr.ie/2010/01/mix-it-so ... /#more-204