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I think all of the big selling points of PulseAudio had similar tragic flaws. Either they were totally useless even conceptually (network transparent audio? rea

by jsnell 15y ago

I think all of the big selling points of PulseAudio had similar tragic flaws. Either they were totally useless even conceptually (network transparent audio? really?) or conceptually at least so-so, but implemented so badly that they were also practically useless. My favorite example of the latter was the per-application volume control (which I've never wanted, but maybe somebody does) which pretty much ended up with the system volume occasionally getting set to the maximum value.

mgkimsal 15y ago
What's so odd about this is that I have this on my macbook now but in a much more straightforward way. Each application running that outputs sound has a volume control embedded in it (itunes, vlc, flash video in youtube, etc). I go to each one and adjust the volume. Not that hard. I realize PA was trying to centralize and offer more, but it's a solution looking for a problem in most cases. And I tried out 'airfoil' the other day (I think that was the name) that let me push out audio from different apps on my mac to 'foil speakers'? - basically other software running to capture and playback that audio. I can essentially run and manage just the audio portion of itunes on mac 1 from software on mac 2. And it 'just worked' (to reclaim the ubuntu mantra). Ahh - here: http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/ http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/
bwat47 15y ago
Per application volume is the feature of PA most people wanted. Windows 7 has this and it works great. In PA however... not so much. Linux does need something like pulseaudio, but pulseaudio does indeed suck :(
superppl 15y ago
PulseAudio has been one of those love/hate things. Per application audio is great when you want to mute an application that you can't mute otherwise (like a flash application for school simply won't shut up). I hate how it keeps touching the volume level for the system/hardware.

by jsnell 15y ago

mgkimsal 15y ago

What's so odd about this is that I have this on my macbook now but in a much more straightforward way. Each application running that outputs sound has a volume control embedded in it (itunes, vlc, flash video in youtube, etc). I go to each one and adjust the volume. Not that hard. I realize PA was trying to centralize and offer more, but it's a solution looking for a problem in most cases. And I tried out 'airfoil' the other day (I think that was the name) that let me push out audio from different apps on my mac to 'foil speakers'? - basically other software running to capture and playback that audio. I can essentially run and manage just the audio portion of itunes on mac 1 from software on mac 2. And it 'just worked' (to reclaim the ubuntu mantra). Ahh - here: http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/ http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/

bwat47 15y ago

Per application volume is the feature of PA most people wanted. Windows 7 has this and it works great. In PA however... not so much. Linux does need something like pulseaudio, but pulseaudio does indeed suck :(

superppl 15y ago

PulseAudio has been one of those love/hate things. Per application audio is great when you want to mute an application that you can't mute otherwise (like a flash application for school simply won't shut up). I hate how it keeps touching the volume level for the system/hardware.