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Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

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  Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Kaj Persson <70147persson@telia.com> - 2019-06-04 21:30 +0200
    Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2019-06-04 22:00 +0200
      Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Joe Dennigan <general@jdenn.fastmail.fm> - 2019-06-05 00:10 +0200
        Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Kaj Persson <70147persson@telia.com> - 2019-06-06 00:30 +0200
          Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Michael Lange <klappnase@freenet.de> - 2019-06-06 00:40 +0200
      Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Michael Lange <klappnase@freenet.de> - 2019-06-05 11:30 +0200
        Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2019-06-05 11:40 +0200
          Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Michael Lange <klappnase@freenet.de> - 2019-06-05 12:20 +0200
            Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2019-06-05 14:30 +0200
              Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2019-06-05 14:40 +0200
                Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2019-06-05 15:40 +0200
                Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> - 2019-06-05 20:20 +0200
              Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2019-06-05 14:40 +0200
        Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Tixy <tixy@yxit.co.uk> - 2019-06-05 12:00 +0200
    Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Georgi Naplatanov <gosho@oles.biz> - 2019-06-04 22:20 +0200
      Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone humbert.olivier.1@free.fr - 2019-06-04 23:00 +0200
        Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2019-06-05 00:30 +0200
          Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone humbert.olivier.1@free.fr - 2019-06-05 01:30 +0200
            Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> - 2019-06-05 10:20 +0200
      Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone conover@rahul.net (John Conover) - 2019-06-04 23:10 +0200
      Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Tixy <tixy@yxit.co.uk> - 2019-06-05 08:50 +0200
        Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2019-06-05 10:10 +0200
          Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2019-06-05 10:30 +0200
            Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> - 2019-06-05 20:10 +0200
      Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2019-06-05 10:20 +0200
        Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2019-06-05 14:50 +0200
          Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Renato Gallo <renato@aster-lab.com> - 2019-06-05 15:00 +0200
            Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> - 2019-06-05 20:10 +0200
              Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2019-06-05 20:40 +0200
          Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2019-06-05 15:40 +0200
      Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Michael Lange <klappnase@freenet.de> - 2019-06-05 11:30 +0200
        Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2019-06-05 11:40 +0200
          Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Michael Lange <klappnase@freenet.de> - 2019-06-05 12:20 +0200
            Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2019-06-05 12:30 +0200
              Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2019-06-05 14:30 +0200
              Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Michael Lange <klappnase@freenet.de> - 2019-06-05 20:10 +0200
        Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Stephan Seitz <stse+debian@fsing.rootsland.net> - 2019-06-05 12:50 +0200
    Re: Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone Michael Howard <mike@dewberryfields.co.uk> - 2019-06-05 09:10 +0200

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#209606 — Replacing Pulseaudio with Alsa alone

I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by 
default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is 
the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the 
one and only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?
/Kaj

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#209607

Kaj Persson wrote: 
> I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by
> default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is the
> best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the one and
> only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?

There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
in any other way except PulseAudio.

If you don't care about that, then you can certainly play music,
record audio, and otherwise do normal audio-related things
through ALSA.

-dsr-

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#209611

Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> writes:

> Kaj Persson wrote: 
>> I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by
>> default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is the
>> best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the one and
>> only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?
>
> There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
> in any other way except PulseAudio.
>
> If you don't care about that, then you can certainly play music,
> record audio, and otherwise do normal audio-related things
> through ALSA.

I got shot of PulseAudio more than a year ago because of serious sound
latency issues (700-1200+ms in VirtualBox/WinXP for some old games I
love).  Using plain ALSA fixed that.

I had already switched to Palemoon as a browser (other problems with
Firefox - not audio relevant) at that point, and now also use Waterfox,
and have not missed PulseAudio or Firefox at all.  As I type this, I am
listening to Saint-Saëns Symphony No 3 on YouTube using Waterfox with no
problems whatsoever.

I don't know of any other desktop applications that actually need
PulseAudio and can't think of any disadvantage(s) to removing it.

Regards,

Joe Dennigan


-- 
“Blood sacrifices keep the planet from eating your feet”
                  -- Red

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#209666

On 2019-06-04 at 23:47, Joe Dennigan wrote:
> Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> writes:
>
>> Kaj Persson wrote:
>>> I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by
>>> default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is the
>>> best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the one and
>>> only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?
>> There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
>> in any other way except PulseAudio.
>>
>> If you don't care about that, then you can certainly play music,
>> record audio, and otherwise do normal audio-related things
>> through ALSA.
> I got shot of PulseAudio more than a year ago because of serious sound
> latency issues (700-1200+ms in VirtualBox/WinXP for some old games I
> love).  Using plain ALSA fixed that.
>
> I had already switched to Palemoon as a browser (other problems with
> Firefox - not audio relevant) at that point, and now also use Waterfox,
> and have not missed PulseAudio or Firefox at all.  As I type this, I am
> listening to Saint-Saëns Symphony No 3 on YouTube using Waterfox with no
> problems whatsoever.
>
> I don't know of any other desktop applications that actually need
> PulseAudio and can't think of any disadvantage(s) to removing it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Joe Dennigan
>
>
Thank you for all answers and advices. A silly question, perhaps: Do I 
need take any special steps for the transform, or is just e.g.

        apt-get --autoremove remove pulseaudio

sufficient, and the system automaticly adapts to the new situation?

/Kaj

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#209667

Hi,

On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 00:21:31 +0200
Kaj Persson <70147persson@telia.com> wrote:

> Thank you for all answers and advices. A silly question, perhaps: Do I 
> need take any special steps for the transform, or is just e.g.
> 
>         apt-get --autoremove remove pulseaudio
> 
> sufficient, and the system automaticly adapts to the new situation?

yes, in my experience simply removing pulseaudio should do the trick.

Regards

Michael

.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

Vulcans worship peace above all.
		-- McCoy, "Return to Tomorrow", stardate 4768.3

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#209625

Hi,

On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 15:55:34 -0400
Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> wrote:

> Kaj Persson wrote: 
> > I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is
> > by default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which
> > is the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be
> > the one and only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages
> > doing so?
> 
> There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
> in any other way except PulseAudio.

is that actually true? Here I can watch videos on yt or vimeo for example
in firefox with sound perfectly intact without pulseaudio installed.
In which situations does sound in ff not work?

Regards

Michael


.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy.  There is
nothing good in war.  Except its ending.
		-- Abraham Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5

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#209626

Michael Lange wrote: 
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 15:55:34 -0400
> Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> wrote:
> 
> > Kaj Persson wrote: 
> > > I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is
> > > by default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which
> > > is the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be
> > > the one and only audio system? Are there any serious disadvantages
> > > doing so?
> > 
> > There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
> > in any other way except PulseAudio.
> 
> is that actually true? Here I can watch videos on yt or vimeo for example
> in firefox with sound perfectly intact without pulseaudio installed.
> In which situations does sound in ff not work?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661

That was two years ago.

-dsr-

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#209630

Hi,

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 05:38:18 -0400
Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> wrote:


> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661
> 
> That was two years ago.

yes, I remember the discussions about that, but still here audio in
firefox without PA never ceased to work.
Actually I always wondered if anyone really tried or if everyone just
believed what other people say ;)

Regards

Michael


.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

Our way is peace.
		-- Septimus, the Son Worshiper, "Bread and Circuses",
		   stardate 4040.7.

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#209634

On Wed 05 Jun 2019 at 12:08:00 +0200, Michael Lange wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 05:38:18 -0400
> Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> > https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661
> > 
> > That was two years ago.
> 
> yes, I remember the discussions about that, but still here audio in
> firefox without PA never ceased to work.
> Actually I always wondered if anyone really tried or if everyone just
> believed what other people say ;)

I hope I am believed when I say that firefox in unstable (67.0.1) has
--enable-alsa in about:buildconfig. And sound works without pulseaudio.

-- 
Brian.

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#209636

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 12:34:49PM +0100, Brian wrote:
> I hope I am believed when I say that firefox in unstable (67.0.1) has
> --enable-alsa in about:buildconfig. And sound works without pulseaudio.

As does firefox-esr 60.6.3esr-1 in buster, it seems.  I didn't know about
about:buildconfig before.  Handy.

I don't know the exact story, but I've heard pieces of it over the last
year or two.  Apparently at one point upstream decided not to support
direct ALSA any more, but they left the code in place, just not enabled
in the default compile-time configuration.  Debian's packages re-enabled
the option to turn on ALSA support.  I was also told that, at some later
point, upstream actually removed the ALSA code from their source tree,
or was planning to do so.  I don't know if Debian is patching the ALSA
code back in, or if the versions we have just haven't been neutered by
upstream yet.

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#209642

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 08:34:59AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 12:34:49PM +0100, Brian wrote:
> > I hope I am believed when I say that firefox in unstable (67.0.1) has
> > --enable-alsa in about:buildconfig. And sound works without pulseaudio.
> 
> As does firefox-esr 60.6.3esr-1 in buster, it seems.  I didn't know about
> about:buildconfig before.  Handy.

Definitely.

> I don't know the exact story, but I've heard pieces of it over the last
> year or two.  Apparently at one point upstream decided not to support
> direct ALSA any more, but they left the code in place, just not enabled
> in the default compile-time configuration.  Debian's packages re-enabled
> the option to turn on ALSA support.  I was also told that, at some later
> point, upstream actually removed the ALSA code from their source tree,
> or was planning to do so.  I don't know if Debian is patching the ALSA
> code back in, or if the versions we have just haven't been neutered by
> upstream yet.

Now that would be something for someone to check with the package source.

Cheers
-- t

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#209651

Greg Wooledge wrote:

> As does firefox-esr 60.6.3esr-1 in buster, it seems.  I didn't know about
> about:buildconfig before.  Handy.
> 
> I don't know the exact story, but I've heard pieces of it over the last
> year or two.  Apparently at one point upstream decided not to support
> direct ALSA any more, but they left the code in place, just not enabled
> in the default compile-time configuration.  Debian's packages re-enabled
> the option to turn on ALSA support.  I was also told that, at some later
> point, upstream actually removed the ALSA code from their source tree,
> or was planning to do so.  I don't know if Debian is patching the ALSA
> code back in, or if the versions we have just haven't been neutered by
> upstream yet.

I installed some time ago from mozilla.org version is 63.0.1 and there is no
alsa in the about:buildconfig. Actually neither alsa nor PA.

I have heard that after investing so much time in PA they decided to
obsolete it, but it has been adopted by so many applications that it is
hard to go back now.

I've been following PA recently (since v.8) and should admit that 12.2
(which is in buster - I think actually it is 12.4, but not sure anymore) is
the best version ever. I compiled debian packages at 12.2 for stretch and I
must admit all my use cases work.

regards 

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#209637

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 12:34:49PM +0100, Brian wrote:
> On Wed 05 Jun 2019 at 12:08:00 +0200, Michael Lange wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 05:38:18 -0400
> > Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > > https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661
> > > 
> > > That was two years ago.
> > 
> > yes, I remember the discussions about that, but still here audio in
> > firefox without PA never ceased to work.
> > Actually I always wondered if anyone really tried or if everyone just
> > believed what other people say ;)
> 
> I hope I am believed when I say that firefox in unstable (67.0.1) has
> --enable-alsa in about:buildconfig. And sound works without pulseaudio.

Ah, thanks. At last someone doing something :-)

Should we meet somewhere I owe you a $BEVERAGE (whithin my financial
possibilities, that is ;-)

Cheers
-- t

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#209629

On Wed, 2019-06-05 at 11:17 +0200, Michael Lange wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 15:55:34 -0400
> Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> wrote:
> 
> > Kaj Persson wrote: 
> > > I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the
> > > Pulseaudio is
> > > by default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor.
> > > Which
> > > is the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting
> > > Alsa be
> > > the one and only audio system? Are there any serious
> > > disadvantages
> > > doing so?
> > 
> > There is one serious disadvantage: Firefox doesn't support audio
> > in any other way except PulseAudio.
> 
> is that actually true? Here I can watch videos on yt or vimeo for
> example
> in firefox with sound perfectly intact without pulseaudio installed.
> In which situations does sound in ff not work?

Hmm, I just uninstalled PulseAudio and Firefox audio still works, so I
guess Debian are still enabling ALSA in their builds. As others have
pointed out, this is likely to not be the case in the long run.

Think I may have installed PulseAudio as an effort to get Google
Hangouts video chat working in the Chromium browser. Just tried that
and with ALSA, I can't seem to get it to use headphones even when they
are selected explicitly by name.

-- 
Tixy

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#209608

On 6/4/19 10:24 PM, Kaj Persson wrote:
> I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by
> default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is
> the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the
> one and only audio system? 

PulseAudio is some kind of mixer/proxy between ALSA and desktop
applications. In modern GNU/Linux OSes it's discouraged to remove/not
using PulseAudio.

Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?

If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use an ALSA
device at the same time on your computer. Even some applications support
PulseAudio only.

Why don't you want to use PulseAudio, any problems?

Kind regards
Georgi

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#209609

> If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use
> an ALSA device at the same time on your computer.

This is untrue. ALSA provides dmix for mixing different audio flows.

Olivier

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#209612

humbert.olivier.1@free.fr writes:

>> If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use
>> an ALSA device at the same time on your computer.
>
> This is untrue. ALSA provides dmix for mixing different audio flows.
>
> Olivier

What's more, the default device uses dmix.  And I find it a lot easier
to do this mixing in raw audio than in PA.

ALSA itself is capable enough that I don't see the point of an audio
server like pulseaudio.

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#209614

> ALSA itself is capable enough that I don't see the point of
> an audio server like pulseaudio.

Depending on your needs. PA is good at resampling easily different audio flows at different samplerate.
Much easily that what one can do with ALSA.

Olivier

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#209620

humbert.olivier.1@free.fr wrote:

> Depending on your needs. PA is good at resampling easily different audio
> flows at different samplerate. Much easily that what one can do with ALSA.
> 
> Olivier

Yes and integration with other subsystems like bluetooth and dbus

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#209610

One thing you might try is to edit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf, and set:

    flat-volumes = no

This will fix most problems with pulseaudio, and alsa will work pretty
much as expected.

    John

BTW, automatic volume control was added in Windows 10. This was the
era that pulseaudio was developed, and the same functionality was
included. It didn't work out in Windows 10, and the functionality was
removed. Pulseaudio still has the functionality.

Georgi Naplatanov writes:
> On 6/4/19 10:24 PM, Kaj Persson wrote:
> > I am running Debian 9 Stretch. After the OS install the Pulseaudio is by
> > default the standard audio system with Alsa as the executor. Which is
> > the best strategy to remove Pulseaudio and instead letting Alsa be the
> > one and only audio system? 
> 
> PulseAudio is some kind of mixer/proxy between ALSA and desktop
> applications. In modern GNU/Linux OSes it's discouraged to remove/not
> using PulseAudio.
> 
> Are there any serious disadvantages doing so?
> 
> If you don't use PulseAudio then only one application can use an ALSA
> device at the same time on your computer. Even some applications support
> PulseAudio only.
> 
> Why don't you want to use PulseAudio, any problems?
> 
> Kind regards
> Georgi

-- 

John Conover, conover@rahul.net, http://www.johncon.com/

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