PulseAudio? Seriously!?

Micronaut · 2019-07-04 01:44:43

One other thing I noticed on my new install of Devuan Ascii. It's got PulseAudio??? Is there a reason for that to be present? I see that ALSA is already available. ALSA is and has been vastly more reliable for more than a decade. Is there some dependency on it? Can't I just purge it all: "apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils" and not have to worry about all the conflicts that might come from having competing audio systems?

Also, where is the mixer control for ALSA? I don't see it in the multimedia menu. Is it not installed by default? Is it available through some other utility?

Dutch_Master · 2019-07-04 04:09:41

Alsa-mixer is in the repo, so that shouldn't be an issue. For getting rid of PA, try aptitude as it's purportedly better in package conflict resolution then apt-get.

kapqa · 2019-07-04 08:25:43

the newer browser like firefox 52+ and chromium to my knowledge depend on pulseaudio for audio playback.

golinux · 2019-07-04 08:37:00

I understand you can get around that dependency with apulse. Search this forum amd DNG archives for discussion. I need sleep or would do it myself.

Panopticon · 2019-07-04 08:40:44

Ive never had an issue deleting pulseaudio in favor of alsa-utils. As golinux points out you may need apulse for firefox.

alsamixer should come up if you are in the audio group, if not it wont.

kapqa · 2019-07-04 10:03:02

on debian wheezy i had issue with gnome3 as removing pulseaudio would sometimes remove also gnome-core or gnome-desktop ... that was a bit to learn that by removing such a "minor" package one could "break" a whole desktop environment.

ToxicExMachina · 2019-07-04 10:53:00

The reason of pulseaudio presence is Debian.

Micronaut · 2019-07-04 17:00:16

Argh... I'd hate to remove it and then find out that Firefox requires it. FF is becoming the only viable alternative to Chrome. Guess I'll just install alsa-mixer and leave PulseAudio alone for now.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2019-07-04 17:09:10

Pulseaudio is a dependency for the XFCE desktop, if you don't want it then use a simple window manager instead; I had Devuan running without PA just fine for my usual dwm desktop.

And for the record the firefox-esr package is compiled with the --enable-alsa flag and so does not need either pulseaudio or apulse.

kapqa · 2019-07-04 18:19:56

H_o_a_S .. thanks for the clarification . I am not sure if Firefox 60 ESR would still work with alsa-only, but 52 probably does. Tried apulse (for firefox and skype if i remember correctly) but i didn't seem a stable solution.
Anyway, i am still using FF52.9 ESR because some extensions i rely on are no more compatible with the newer versions of FF.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2019-07-04 18:33:03

kapqa wrote:

I am not sure if Firefox 60 ESR would still work with alsa-only

It works for me.

EDIT: don't use v52.9, it is full of security holes.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2019-07-04 18:34:11)

golinux · 2019-07-04 19:32:23

kapqa wrote:

Anyway, i am still using FF52.9 ESR because some extensions i rely on are no more compatible with the newer versions of FF.

I was also on 52.9 ESR until a few days ago when I finally upgraded. It is a bit of a clusterf**k and several days later I'm still trying to get it back close to where it was. It's now in a somewhat acceptable state. But since I use it for very few things anymore, it's not a biggie.

Micronaut · 2019-07-04 21:17:10

Well, I do like XFCE. The two original old standby desktops have gone nuts. KDE is an insane widget zoo that requires cutting edge hardware just to run and is very annoying when it does run. Supposedly all the fancy useless graphical hand-waving can be disabled but I don't even want to try to wade through the settings and find where to do that. Gnome is not quite as flashy but has gone down a similar route, trying to out-do Windows for bloat and restrictions meant to "help" the user do things The Right Way [tm]. But as the saying goes, make something foolproof and only a fool will use it.

The only competition I am aware of for XFCE right now is LXDE, but as the new kid on the block it's missing a lot of those "mature" features that take time to complete. If XFCE needs PulseAudio, I guess it will have to stay.

Edit: But I do need to try the "Trinity" Desktop one of these days... it's based on KDE 3, which was still sane.

Last edited by Micronaut (2019-07-04 21:17:57)

macondo · 2019-07-04 22:01:32

Micronaut, I recently had the same problem and solved with synaptic.
http://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=2914

# apt-get install aumix menu alsa-lib alsa-plugins alsa-utils
$ alsamixer
unmute channels with letter m

sgage · 2019-07-04 22:11:37

I really like MATE, the fork of Gnome 2. Does everything I need. I really don't care for XFCE. Forget about Gnome Shell or KDE...

dxrobertson · 2019-07-04 22:36:19

Disable PulseAudio:

edit /etc/pulse/client.conf: 
set autospawn = no

remove <home>/.config/pulse

This depends on desktop environment used, disable any autostart within desktop env: 
Settings>Session and Startup:
 Autostart: check OFF pulseaudio

Ensure alsa-utils is installed.

login to terminal as root, set sound card and volumes:
=>alsamixer
F6 sound card, select "whataver appears other than default"
set master, speaker, headphone to 100% (or whatever)
exit
=>alsactl store

You may want to install a nice panel volume app: volumeicon-alsa
You may want to install a nice mixer: qasmixer

You can purge pulseaudio packages, but libpulse0* packages are required, do not remove these. The dependencies of Pulse with the desktop are due to installing the desktop meta-packages. Thus when you try to purge Pulse, it appears that it wants to remove "the desktop". Not going to say or recommend purging Pulse (but I do with no problems). When installing desktop with --no-install-recommends, you can more control what gets installed (no Pulse). Dont know about Firefox requirements.

I have run LXQT, XFCE, KDE successfully without Pulse (no Firefox).

Last edited by dxrobertson (2019-07-04 22:58:09)

dxrobertson · 2019-07-04 23:23:04

Micronaut wrote:

KDE is an insane widget zoo that requires cutting edge hardware just to run and is very annoying when it does run. Supposedly all the fancy useless graphical hand-waving can be disabled but I don't even want to try to wade through the settings and find where to do that.

Agree. I have tried out KDE for years, since 3 and always the same; buggy and too many config options. But the current release in Beowulf (5.14) I find it to be very stable, config has gotten to an understandable level, and its actually not horribly bad on resources.

I have a minimal KDE install and disabled all compositor and effects. Upon boot into KDE with SDDM display manager; a reasonable memory usage for KDE:

dxrobertson@acer:~$ free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          3.7Gi       292Mi       3.1Gi        29Mi       333Mi       3.2Gi
Swap:         3.9Gi          0B       3.9Gi
dxrobertson@acer:~$

Ron · 2019-07-05 02:07:56

Out of curiosity I checked what I had installed. While I don't have pulseaudio installed, I do have gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio, libpulse-mainloop-glib0, and libpulse0 installed. Can I delete these 3 without any adverse effects? Thanks.

kapqa · 2019-07-05 08:55:03

firefox : i just keep the newest versoin from repo installed (most of times) and download the .tar.gz2 from the firefox ftp archive.
then in change in about:config
xpinstall.signatures.required
xpinstall.whitelist.required
bot to "false"

and i am good to go with installing the legacy extensions.

https://legacycollector.org/firefox-addons/

Last edited by kapqa (2019-07-05 09:15:14)

kapqa · 2019-07-05 08:56:48

this is my favorite extension which is no longer supported by firefox quantum (although there are similar ones available, but less good functional)

https://github.com/antoniy/mpv-youtube-dl-binding

i have not heard of any big security holes in Firefox ESR; i put functionality first, and on Windows i use Kaspersky.

KDE is my favorite Linux Desktop Environment, but haven't used quite some time now, due mostly computing on Windows.
i like the functionality, but the newer Graphics (especially in Ubuntu) i found overbloat and less responsive (especialy when compared to Trusty).

EDIT: i just found another elegant mpv player that does quite the same as above similarly for firefox quantum!

https://github.com/woodruffw/ff2mpv

Last edited by kapqa (2019-07-05 09:31:29)

dxrobertson · 2019-07-05 09:52:31

Ron wrote:

Out of curiosity I checked what I had installed. While I don't have pulseaudio installed, I do have gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio, libpulse-mainloop-glib0, and libpulse0 installed. Can I delete these 3 without any adverse effects? Thanks.

Those are the same 3 packages I have installed.

gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio was pulled in by handbrake on my system. Its a recommend and not a depend, so I may be able to remove it on my system. Handbrake would not be removed, it just may not work right. For you it depends on what package pulled it in.

libpulse-mainloop-glib0, and libpulse0 are the pulse packages that have so many hard depends I do not think they can safely be removed, atleast on my KDE system.

You can see what packages depend on a package via rdepends:

apt rdepends gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio

And you can "try-out" a purge of a package by use of the -s option, to see what would be removed along with it:

apt -s purge  gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio

Ron · 2019-07-06 02:13:46

dxrobertson wrote:

You can see what packages depend on a package via rdepends:
apt rdepends gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio
And you can "try-out" a purge of a package by use of the -s option, to see what would be removed along with it:
apt -s purge  gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio

I ran apt rdepends gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio and this is the result. What does the line before some of the items on the list mean, if anything? At first I thought it meant that those are installed apps since I noticed Handbrake has one, but I checked some of the others and they weren't installed. Is there a way to get results of only installed apps on my system?

gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio
Reverse Depends:
  Depends: gstreamer1.0-plugins-good-dbg (= 1.10.4-1)
  Recommends: totem
  Recommends: rhythmbox
  Depends: quodlibet
  Recommends: plainbox-provider-checkbox
 |Depends: pitivi
  Recommends: pidgin
 |Depends: phonon4qt5-backend-gstreamer
  Depends: phonon-backend-gstreamer
  Recommends: mopidy
 |Recommends: libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37
  Depends: knowthelist
  Depends: kazam
 |Recommends: handbrake
  Depends: gnome-core (>= 1.10)
  Recommends: gst123
  Depends: gnome-sound-recorder
 |Depends: banshee
  Suggests: gnome-control-center
  Depends: empathy
  Recommends: clementine
  Suggests: cinnamon-control-center
 |Depends: buzztrax
  Recommends: banshee

Last edited by Ron (2019-07-06 02:16:51)

dxrobertson · 2019-07-06 15:38:13

I think the --installed option shows only whats actually installed-

apt --installed rdepends gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio
gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio
Reverse Depends:
 |Recommends: handbrake

Ron · 2019-07-06 17:41:01

dxrobertson wrote:

I think the --installed option shows only whats actually installed-

Thanks.

I also ran this command for libpulse0 and it shows that of the apps I have installed, that simple screen recorder, mpv, mplayer, and mate-settings-daemon (among others) depend upon it. Looking at the description for libpulse0 in Synaptic it says it is PulseAudio client libraries. Why would these apps depend on libpulse0 especially since a lot of people on Linux don't use Pulseaudio? I find that disturbing, even though I don't fully know why.

golinux · 2019-07-06 18:08:04

Ron wrote:

dxrobertson wrote:
I think the --installed option shows only whats actually installed-
Thanks.
I also ran this command for libpulse0 and it shows that of the apps I have installed, that simple screen recorder, mpv, mplayer, and mate-settings-daemon (among others) depend upon it. Looking at the description for libpulse0 in Synaptic it says it is PulseAudio client libraries. Why would these apps depend on libpulse0 especially since a lot of people on Linux don't use Pulseaudio? I find that disturbing, even though I don't fully know why.

It's part of a "lock-in" on the way to a one-size-fits-all OS that will be nothing like what we have known and loved. Modularity will be a thing of the past. At least they'll try to do that. Resistance is not futile. There is always a way around the mousetrap.

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#1 2019-07-04 01:44:43

PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#2 2019-07-04 04:09:41

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#3 2019-07-04 08:25:43

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#4 2019-07-04 08:37:00

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#5 2019-07-04 08:40:44

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#6 2019-07-04 10:03:02

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#7 2019-07-04 10:53:00

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#8 2019-07-04 17:00:16

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#9 2019-07-04 17:09:10

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#10 2019-07-04 18:19:56

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#11 2019-07-04 18:33:03

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#12 2019-07-04 19:32:23

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#13 2019-07-04 21:17:10

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#14 2019-07-04 22:01:32

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#15 2019-07-04 22:11:37

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#16 2019-07-04 22:36:19

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#17 2019-07-04 23:23:04

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#18 2019-07-05 02:07:56

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#19 2019-07-05 08:55:03

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#20 2019-07-05 08:56:48

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#21 2019-07-05 09:52:31

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#22 2019-07-06 02:13:46

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#23 2019-07-06 15:38:13

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#24 2019-07-06 17:41:01

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

#25 2019-07-06 18:08:04

Re: PulseAudio? Seriously!?

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