4 ms·

I'm still happy with them as a browser. But not sure now if they force PA on me. I've tired to use/install it (PA) before, but I couldn't stand the PA process h

by esaym 10y ago

I'm still happy with them as a browser. But not sure now if they force PA on me. I've tired to use/install it (PA) before, but I couldn't stand the PA process hanging around in the background eating 20% of my cpu...especially on laptops.

Alupis 10y ago
> PA process hanging around in the background eating 20% of my cpu Sounds like a misconfiguration if anything. For a typical user - PulseAudio "just works" and there's no more to it than that. It does make large improvements over just plain ALSA, and as far as I know, is included in all the major Linux distros... so many folks use it and never even know nor think about it.
- officialchicken 10y ago
  > For a typical user - PulseAudio "just works" and there's no more to it than that Nope. Sleep mode, no matter what distro you use, causes issues from 2008 until today [0][1][2]...[n] [0] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Troubleshoot... [1] http://askubuntu.com/questions/762816/ubuntu-16-04-changes-sound-device-after-suspend-how-to-fix http://askubuntu.com/questions/762816/ubuntu-16-04-changes-s... [2] https://www.linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=13979 https://www.linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=13979
  - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
    Seems fixed https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93946 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93946
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    This is where using Debian Stable will bite you. The issue has been fixed 2 PulseAudio releases back.
- esaym 10y ago
  I might try it out again. On paper PA sounds cool, but as a power user, when I look at what processes are running on my machine, I don't like seeing any more than I have to. From my simple perspective (as a debian user), everything on my laptop works fine sound-wise. Then I want to be "cool" and use the latest and greatest, so I install (what I think to be) all the needed PA packages and reboot my machine. I notice nothing different other than now I have a background process that consumes CPU resources when ever a sound is playing. I don't like that, and it seems strange. I've tried to figure out what exactly the linux sound system looks like under the hood, but I really can't. And then I come across pages like this: http://askubuntu.com/questions/581128/what-is-the-relation-between-alsa-and-pulseaudio-sound-architecture http://askubuntu.com/questions/581128/what-is-the-relation-b... that flat out state PA just sits on top of ALSA. So in my mind, if everything just works with out PA, why install it?
  - em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
    > "PA just sits on top of ALSA. So in my mind, if everything just works with out PA, why install it?" Yes, PA sits on top of ALSA. But PA does have other features, for example sending audio over the network, which is something that I have used on systems that don't have soundcards (e.g. Windows Subsystem for Linux) and for routing all my audio through my OpenWRT router which is connected to my high quality stereo (which allows all computers in my room to output audio to speakers without any cables). Also things like grabbing audio out from one app and recording to audacity is easy with PA. That being said, I'm the type of person that prefers minimal systems, in which case I usually stick to LXDE sans-pulse, and if I do need advanced audio processing, then I go with Jack.
- asveikau 10y ago
  I have flat out never seen it work on my systems, and that ain't for lack of trying. I dread when somebody suggests using it to solve a problem because it is a "now you have two problems" solution.
  - Alupis 10y ago
    Tried recently? I'm certain if there were these major "show-stopping" issues, at least a few of the big distros would have noticed by now.
ilikejam 10y ago
That CPU use is resampling to match the sound card rate. If PA isn't doing it, your apps will be instead. Either way, it's going to take some cycles.
- esaym 10y ago
  But don't some card have hardware resampling? Seems my sound blaster audigy from the early 2000's advertised something like that. If resampling is such a hog, why can't the sound card do it? Seems like thats the whole point?
  - krakensden 10y ago
    Yes. No computers ship with them, and haven't since the 90s. They are a super niche product.
- esaym 10y ago
  >If PA isn't doing it, your apps will be instead. You were right about that, I tested it in another comment on here. I thought that resampling would happen within a kernel driver or something. But no, apparently when an app uses the alsa library, the functions that resample will happen within the app generating the sound (and thus in userland).
Asooka 10y ago
Protip: use pulse on top of jack. I can't get to my PA config right now, but the gist is 1) copy the default config to ~/.pulseaudio 2) edit out the device autodetection and add in loading just the jack module 3) if you have more than a single device, either add it to the pulseaudio config (i.e. bluetooth comm device for use with skype) or use alsa_in and alsa_out to connect an additional alsa device to jack, then add the device to the pulse config as an additional source/sink pair 4) keep the default alsa device pointing to an alsa-pulse bridge. Yes, this sounds crazy when you can just layer alsa on jack rather than on pulse->jack, but this way you get the per-application volume controls, which are one of the few really good features of pulse. If you don't care for per-application volume controls, just layer alsa on top of jack directly. With this setup, pulse acts as a simple bridge to jack and jack does a much better job of controlling your sound card, remixing, etc. I have a hunch that the absolute single best sound setup on linux would involve patching jack to basically act like pulse w.r.t automatic device management and then add the native pulse protocol to it.
natermer 10y ago
> I couldn't stand the PA process hanging around in the background eating 20% of my cpu...especially on laptops. That's likely a artifact of you needing to configure these things yourself and not doing a very good job. This is where distros that force users to configure basic features like audio do a real disservice. In 2016 nobody should be configuring anything to do with audio unless they are doing audio production. If a problem comes up the only thing that should be done is to file a bug so it can be fixed. Working around bugs by trying to configure something is nasty business, but unfortunately when distributions don't do the work it forces users to do it. Going from a system that is configured to use Alsa and then trying to go to Pulseaudio is a PITA and is surprisingly difficult to get right. Here are the basic steps: * First you need to undo the damage caused by the usage of things like 'alsamixer'. Alsamixer does a very poor job exposing the low-level mixer controls on your hardware. A lot of the controls are only partially functional and turn on or enable some configurations in spooky ways that can't be undone. Bad configuration settings caused by things like alsamixer cause endless headaches because it jacks up Pulseaudio's ability to configure the hardware correctly sometimes. To prevent current settings from carrying over to the next reboot you need to locate your 'asound.state' file were the alsa service stores your configurations between reboots. Delete that and symbolically link it to /dev/null, reboot, and then turn it back to a regular file. * Find all your Alsa 'hacks' and get rid of them. Your .asoundrc files and the like. You definitely do not want to be doing things like setting bitrates or buffers or the like using Alsa configuration files. Get rid of dmix and any other alsa plugins you have configured. They are counter productive. You can do that by configuring PulseAudio if you really want to. * Make sure that Pulseaudio is using hardware device directly and not going through something like 'dmix'. * make sure that your init system is doing things correctly and that no sound gets kicked off before Pulseaudio latches to the hardware. Modern hardware has no hardware mixing features because they increase cost and lower audio quality. * Make sure your software is configured to use Pulseaudio directly whenever possible. This can be very difficult, unfortunately, because there are a huge numbers of audio libraries and whatnot that applications use and they are all configured differently. If CPU usage is still a issue after you have it setup initially you can control the type of resampling algorithm you use. Alsa with DMIX uses as much CPU as Pulseaudio on 'Trivial' resampling method. A lot of the difference in cpu usage is psychological. When the default configuration of Alsa burns up cpu with resampling it doesn't show up in things like 'top'. On a laptop, with Pulseaudio configured correctly, you should see a slight reduction in energy use.

by esaym 10y ago

Alupis 10y ago

> PA process hanging around in the background eating 20% of my cpu Sounds like a misconfiguration if anything. For a typical user - PulseAudio "just works" and there's no more to it than that. It does make large improvements over just plain ALSA, and as far as I know, is included in all the major Linux distros... so many folks use it and never even know nor think about it.

officialchicken 10y ago
> For a typical user - PulseAudio "just works" and there's no more to it than that Nope. Sleep mode, no matter what distro you use, causes issues from 2008 until today [0][1][2]...[n] [0] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Troubleshoot... [1] http://askubuntu.com/questions/762816/ubuntu-16-04-changes-sound-device-after-suspend-how-to-fix http://askubuntu.com/questions/762816/ubuntu-16-04-changes-s... [2] https://www.linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=13979 https://www.linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=13979
- the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
  Seems fixed https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93946 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93946
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  This is where using Debian Stable will bite you. The issue has been fixed 2 PulseAudio releases back.
esaym 10y ago
I might try it out again. On paper PA sounds cool, but as a power user, when I look at what processes are running on my machine, I don't like seeing any more than I have to. From my simple perspective (as a debian user), everything on my laptop works fine sound-wise. Then I want to be "cool" and use the latest and greatest, so I install (what I think to be) all the needed PA packages and reboot my machine. I notice nothing different other than now I have a background process that consumes CPU resources when ever a sound is playing. I don't like that, and it seems strange. I've tried to figure out what exactly the linux sound system looks like under the hood, but I really can't. And then I come across pages like this: http://askubuntu.com/questions/581128/what-is-the-relation-between-alsa-and-pulseaudio-sound-architecture http://askubuntu.com/questions/581128/what-is-the-relation-b... that flat out state PA just sits on top of ALSA. So in my mind, if everything just works with out PA, why install it?
- em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
  > "PA just sits on top of ALSA. So in my mind, if everything just works with out PA, why install it?" Yes, PA sits on top of ALSA. But PA does have other features, for example sending audio over the network, which is something that I have used on systems that don't have soundcards (e.g. Windows Subsystem for Linux) and for routing all my audio through my OpenWRT router which is connected to my high quality stereo (which allows all computers in my room to output audio to speakers without any cables). Also things like grabbing audio out from one app and recording to audacity is easy with PA. That being said, I'm the type of person that prefers minimal systems, in which case I usually stick to LXDE sans-pulse, and if I do need advanced audio processing, then I go with Jack.
asveikau 10y ago
I have flat out never seen it work on my systems, and that ain't for lack of trying. I dread when somebody suggests using it to solve a problem because it is a "now you have two problems" solution.
- Alupis 10y ago
  Tried recently? I'm certain if there were these major "show-stopping" issues, at least a few of the big distros would have noticed by now.

ilikejam 10y ago

That CPU use is resampling to match the sound card rate. If PA isn't doing it, your apps will be instead. Either way, it's going to take some cycles.

esaym 10y ago
But don't some card have hardware resampling? Seems my sound blaster audigy from the early 2000's advertised something like that. If resampling is such a hog, why can't the sound card do it? Seems like thats the whole point?
- krakensden 10y ago
  Yes. No computers ship with them, and haven't since the 90s. They are a super niche product.
esaym 10y ago
>If PA isn't doing it, your apps will be instead. You were right about that, I tested it in another comment on here. I thought that resampling would happen within a kernel driver or something. But no, apparently when an app uses the alsa library, the functions that resample will happen within the app generating the sound (and thus in userland).

Asooka 10y ago

Protip: use pulse on top of jack. I can't get to my PA config right now, but the gist is 1) copy the default config to ~/.pulseaudio 2) edit out the device autodetection and add in loading just the jack module 3) if you have more than a single device, either add it to the pulseaudio config (i.e. bluetooth comm device for use with skype) or use alsa_in and alsa_out to connect an additional alsa device to jack, then add the device to the pulse config as an additional source/sink pair 4) keep the default alsa device pointing to an alsa-pulse bridge. Yes, this sounds crazy when you can just layer alsa on jack rather than on pulse->jack, but this way you get the per-application volume controls, which are one of the few really good features of pulse. If you don't care for per-application volume controls, just layer alsa on top of jack directly. With this setup, pulse acts as a simple bridge to jack and jack does a much better job of controlling your sound card, remixing, etc. I have a hunch that the absolute single best sound setup on linux would involve patching jack to basically act like pulse w.r.t automatic device management and then add the native pulse protocol to it.

natermer 10y ago

> I couldn't stand the PA process hanging around in the background eating 20% of my cpu...especially on laptops. That's likely a artifact of you needing to configure these things yourself and not doing a very good job. This is where distros that force users to configure basic features like audio do a real disservice. In 2016 nobody should be configuring anything to do with audio unless they are doing audio production. If a problem comes up the only thing that should be done is to file a bug so it can be fixed. Working around bugs by trying to configure something is nasty business, but unfortunately when distributions don't do the work it forces users to do it. Going from a system that is configured to use Alsa and then trying to go to Pulseaudio is a PITA and is surprisingly difficult to get right. Here are the basic steps: * First you need to undo the damage caused by the usage of things like 'alsamixer'. Alsamixer does a very poor job exposing the low-level mixer controls on your hardware. A lot of the controls are only partially functional and turn on or enable some configurations in spooky ways that can't be undone. Bad configuration settings caused by things like alsamixer cause endless headaches because it jacks up Pulseaudio's ability to configure the hardware correctly sometimes. To prevent current settings from carrying over to the next reboot you need to locate your 'asound.state' file were the alsa service stores your configurations between reboots. Delete that and symbolically link it to /dev/null, reboot, and then turn it back to a regular file. * Find all your Alsa 'hacks' and get rid of them. Your .asoundrc files and the like. You definitely do not want to be doing things like setting bitrates or buffers or the like using Alsa configuration files. Get rid of dmix and any other alsa plugins you have configured. They are counter productive. You can do that by configuring PulseAudio if you really want to. * Make sure that Pulseaudio is using hardware device directly and not going through something like 'dmix'. * make sure that your init system is doing things correctly and that no sound gets kicked off before Pulseaudio latches to the hardware. Modern hardware has no hardware mixing features because they increase cost and lower audio quality. * Make sure your software is configured to use Pulseaudio directly whenever possible. This can be very difficult, unfortunately, because there are a huge numbers of audio libraries and whatnot that applications use and they are all configured differently. If CPU usage is still a issue after you have it setup initially you can control the type of resampling algorithm you use. Alsa with DMIX uses as much CPU as Pulseaudio on 'Trivial' resampling method. A lot of the difference in cpu usage is psychological. When the default configuration of Alsa burns up cpu with resampling it doesn't show up in things like 'top'. On a laptop, with Pulseaudio configured correctly, you should see a slight reduction in energy use.