11 ms·

PulseAudio 5.0

40 points by conductor 13y ago

hansjorg 13y ago
> This issue is yet to be resolved with the BlueZ developers Anyone know the back story on the missing HSP/HFP support in BlueZ 5? Patent related? Edit: it's mentioned briefly in the BlueZ 5 release notes (http://www.bluez.org/release-of-bluez-5-0/ http://www.bluez.org/release-of-bluez-5-0/)
buster 13y ago
What's the major difference to 4.0?
- FooBarWidget 13y ago
  The 5.0 release notes are linked right from that announcement...
thomasahle 13y ago
'Changes at a Glance' from the release notes: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Notes/5.0/ http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Notes/5.... * BlueZ 5 support (A2DP only) * Reimplementation of the tunnel modules * Native log target support for systemd-journal * Small changes here and there * Many bug fixes Personally it's probably been a year since last time I had to think about pulseaudio, which is the way I prefer it to stay.
- makomk 13y ago
  Amongst other things, I think they're finally reverting the half-baked patch in 4.0 that broke various resamplers. Wonder which of the changes will cause me problems this time around...
dfc 13y ago
Better release notes: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Notes/5.0/ http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Notes/5.... Personally Pulseaudio has always been "that thing that fixes all those problems I never had with ALSA." I realize there is more to it than that but I have never really understood what pulseaudio does for me a casual sound user? Sound on my computer is exclusively produced by mpd, vlc and flashplugin-nonfree and I do not remember the last time I used a microphone on a linux machine.[1] I have browsed through the docs a couple of times but I have never figured out why, let alone how, I would want to change anything. The only thing about Pulseaudio that I am confident of is that it is less overkill than jackd for my use cases. What am I missing? [1]: I guess I have used the microphone a couple of times but it was always because I thought I would try Skype again. But this always resulted in a ton of wasted time with 32bit libraries and an avalanche of qt dependencies. I would get skype to work but I used it so rarely that by the time I needed it again I had to go through all the nonsense all over again.
- codyps 13y ago
  The only thing I've used it for is switching between HDMI-SPDIF and analog speaker/headphone outputs without needing to restart programs.
- th0ma5 13y ago
  I think some of the virtualization of devices and device sharing works a little better with Pulse. I think the UI is little slicker for some of this. I still use ALSA for post-processing on my media center, and I have used Jack for music applications. In general Linux audio is a clusterfuck, but once you dig through it all it is hard to criticize without advocating making an even bigger mess.
  - pja 13y ago
    Yeah, it's a bit like printing: It seems like it ought to be straightforward but it turns out that reality disagrees rather vehemently.
    - dfc 13y ago
      Printing? If you think CUPS is bad I take it you never had to get lpd and some crappy HP inkjet to work. What does CUPS not do for you? Last time I looked it even does avahi by default. Sure having a million foomatic filters installed is a waste of space but I have never come across a printer that was not covered by the base set of filters.
      - pja 13y ago
        I don't think CUPS is bad at all: Printing is such a craptacular nightmare that CUPS is one of the least worst solutions around. It speaks volumes that Apple chucked their extant printing code in the bin and switched to CUPS as their printing backend, because CUPS was better than any of the alternatives available to them.
        dfc 13y ago
        What is craptacular about printing?
rainmaking 13y ago
I hope it doesn't suck.
- panzi 13y ago
  Which would be a new feature. For me it only ever caused troubles (sound errors and huge latency and you can't get rid of it in Fedora). The only useful thing about it is that you can control the volume of each program even if the program itself does not provide such an control (some games are crappy like that). But that hardy justifies all the trouble it causes.
  - dscrd 13y ago
    Interesting. My experience with PA ever since version 2.0 has been that sound just magically works. Like it has been on Windows and OS X for years now. Another embarrasment for a Linux user is finally over. I think the last one to go is X11 => Wayland.
    - panzi 13y ago
      That was my experience with Knoppix around 2001. Sound did just work (starting at early boot stages!). Then came PA and messed it all up.
upofadown 13y ago
I note that bug 62588 still remains unfixed: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62588 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62588 This particular bug was known as 741 back in 2009: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-bugs/2009-December/003553.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-bugs/2009-D... Is it perhaps the case that Pulseaudio is an example of a complex program where the original developers have gone elsewhere? All the easy bugs get fixed, the ones that require deep knowledge remain forever.

40 points by conductor 13y ago

> This issue is yet to be resolved with the BlueZ developers Anyone know the back story on the missing HSP/HFP support in BlueZ 5? Patent related? Edit: it's mentioned briefly in the BlueZ 5 release notes (http://www.bluez.org/release-of-bluez-5-0/ http://www.bluez.org/release-of-bluez-5-0/)

buster 13y ago

What's the major difference to 4.0?

FooBarWidget 13y ago
The 5.0 release notes are linked right from that announcement...

thomasahle 13y ago

'Changes at a Glance' from the release notes: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Notes/5.0/ http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Notes/5.... * BlueZ 5 support (A2DP only) * Reimplementation of the tunnel modules * Native log target support for systemd-journal * Small changes here and there * Many bug fixes Personally it's probably been a year since last time I had to think about pulseaudio, which is the way I prefer it to stay.

makomk 13y ago
Amongst other things, I think they're finally reverting the half-baked patch in 4.0 that broke various resamplers. Wonder which of the changes will cause me problems this time around...

dfc 13y ago

Better release notes: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Notes/5.0/ http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Notes/5.... Personally Pulseaudio has always been "that thing that fixes all those problems I never had with ALSA." I realize there is more to it than that but I have never really understood what pulseaudio does for me a casual sound user? Sound on my computer is exclusively produced by mpd, vlc and flashplugin-nonfree and I do not remember the last time I used a microphone on a linux machine.[1] I have browsed through the docs a couple of times but I have never figured out why, let alone how, I would want to change anything. The only thing about Pulseaudio that I am confident of is that it is less overkill than jackd for my use cases. What am I missing? [1]: I guess I have used the microphone a couple of times but it was always because I thought I would try Skype again. But this always resulted in a ton of wasted time with 32bit libraries and an avalanche of qt dependencies. I would get skype to work but I used it so rarely that by the time I needed it again I had to go through all the nonsense all over again.

codyps 13y ago
The only thing I've used it for is switching between HDMI-SPDIF and analog speaker/headphone outputs without needing to restart programs.
th0ma5 13y ago
I think some of the virtualization of devices and device sharing works a little better with Pulse. I think the UI is little slicker for some of this. I still use ALSA for post-processing on my media center, and I have used Jack for music applications. In general Linux audio is a clusterfuck, but once you dig through it all it is hard to criticize without advocating making an even bigger mess.
- pja 13y ago
  Yeah, it's a bit like printing: It seems like it ought to be straightforward but it turns out that reality disagrees rather vehemently.
  - dfc 13y ago
    Printing? If you think CUPS is bad I take it you never had to get lpd and some crappy HP inkjet to work. What does CUPS not do for you? Last time I looked it even does avahi by default. Sure having a million foomatic filters installed is a waste of space but I have never come across a printer that was not covered by the base set of filters.
    - pja 13y ago
      I don't think CUPS is bad at all: Printing is such a craptacular nightmare that CUPS is one of the least worst solutions around. It speaks volumes that Apple chucked their extant printing code in the bin and switched to CUPS as their printing backend, because CUPS was better than any of the alternatives available to them.
      - dfc 13y ago
        What is craptacular about printing?

rainmaking 13y ago

I hope it doesn't suck.

panzi 13y ago
Which would be a new feature. For me it only ever caused troubles (sound errors and huge latency and you can't get rid of it in Fedora). The only useful thing about it is that you can control the volume of each program even if the program itself does not provide such an control (some games are crappy like that). But that hardy justifies all the trouble it causes.
- dscrd 13y ago
  Interesting. My experience with PA ever since version 2.0 has been that sound just magically works. Like it has been on Windows and OS X for years now. Another embarrasment for a Linux user is finally over. I think the last one to go is X11 => Wayland.
  - panzi 13y ago
    That was my experience with Knoppix around 2001. Sound did just work (starting at early boot stages!). Then came PA and messed it all up.

upofadown 13y ago

I note that bug 62588 still remains unfixed: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62588 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62588 This particular bug was known as 741 back in 2009: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-bugs/2009-December/003553.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-bugs/2009-D... Is it perhaps the case that Pulseaudio is an example of a complex program where the original developers have gone elsewhere? All the easy bugs get fixed, the ones that require deep knowledge remain forever.