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Pulseaudio problem with intrepid Ibex

Baloo Uriza
Debian Linux Helper
Join date: 19 Apr 2008
Posts: 895
11-08-2008 14:34
From: Get Takacs
ALSA is the wrong level for userland programs to use. In the same way X Windows manages userland access to your graphics hardware, Pulse Audio manages access to audio hardware. Pretend we're talking about graphics for a moment, this is essentially your argument:


Non-sequitur. X has long been the accepted method of doing graphics in unix long before Linux followed suit. Likewise, save for a few vendors which also used X for networked sound, the accepted method has been to use the hardware as intended.

From: someone
Also, sound cards are tending towards not supporting simultaneous output because it's cheaper to do it in software. What if your media center pc's integrated sound doesn't support it? What if your notebook doesn't? Why should you be penalised in these cases?


Your media center probably has PCI slots. If you're a smart shopper, you would have been able to avoid the inferior notebook. It's called being an educated consumer. To come up with a completely out of (X11) band method for networked sound or to gloss over vendors not being held to doing the right thing sounds like a really poor reason to reinvent the wheel and make sound harder to use.
Katheryne Helendale
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Join date: 5 Jun 2008
Posts: 2,187
11-08-2008 18:29
From: Baloo Uriza
Your media center probably has PCI slots. If you're a smart shopper, you would have been able to avoid the inferior notebook. It's called being an educated consumer. To come up with a completely out of (X11) band method for networked sound or to gloss over vendors not being held to doing the right thing sounds like a really poor reason to reinvent the wheel and make sound harder to use.

Are you for real??? What you just said is tantamount to stating that the only people who should be running Linux are people with high-end multi-stream sound cards! Not only does this rule out a majority of desktop users, but it completely leaves out laptop users entirely! Are you really this willing to abandon 90% of Linux's market share just so you don't have to deal with Pulseaudio???

Besides, your high-end multi-stream sound card is no panacea either. So, instead of being restricted to one stream, you're restricted to - what, maybe 10? What happens if you run out of streams?

If I gave you my address, would you send me one of these high-end multi-stream cards so that I can be one less person needing to rely on Pulseaudio? No? Well, could you at least share whatever it is you're smoking?
Panther Farber
The rainbow colored furry
Join date: 11 Mar 2004
Posts: 119
11-08-2008 19:03
From: Baloo Uriza
No, as in, pulseaudio didn't work at all in SL, I RTFM'd, still didn't work. I know what I'm talking about, please quit claiming PA is quality software and a drop in replacement for esound, when it's exactly the opposite.



Your just stating that because you havent gotten it to work. You have to remember that just because you cant get something to work doesnt mean that others havent. its actualy a really easy fix. If pulse audio is already set up all you have to do is download libopenal.so as mentioned in other threads on this topic and replace the one that comes with SL. If you want i can even send it to your email.

I have been using voice on intrepid (on my laptop) and SUSE (on my desktop) with pulseaudio since they where released and it has worked wonderfully

Oh and I use networked sound all the time. Its great because my laptop is my main computer but my desktop is connected to the surround sound system. I can just pop up a song on my laptop and direct it to my headphones or the surround sound on the desktop (two sound cards) or just leave it on my laptop.
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Meow
Get Takacs
Registered User
Join date: 1 Mar 2007
Posts: 23
11-09-2008 03:16
From: Baloo Uriza
Non-sequitur. X has long been the accepted method of doing graphics in unix long before Linux followed suit. Likewise, save for a few vendors which also used X for networked sound, the accepted method has been to use the hardware as intended.


Being generally accepted has nothing to do with it -- apart from following from your argument of "I don't like it so it can't be good". Using a layer like Pulse Audio and X is the correct solution to the problem of providing a uniform interface to widely varying hardware and environments for a multi-user system.

From: Baloo Uriza
Your media center probably has PCI slots. If you're a smart shopper, you would have been able to avoid the inferior notebook. It's called being an educated consumer.


The smart shopper will opt for the cheaper option with identical features, in this case a cheaper notebook and an operating system that still supports multiplexed sound output on it. Being an educated shopper in this case would be knowing that paying for hardware support on a consumer computer for multiple output channels is paying extra for something you could have got for free.

From: Baloo Uriza
To come up with a completely out of (X11) band method for networked sound or to gloss over vendors not being held to doing the right thing sounds like a really poor reason to reinvent the wheel and make sound harder to use.


I use networked sound every day at work, but that has nothing to do with it. It's the correct architectural choice. Given that Pulse Audio works well with well-behaved applications out of the box, provides multiplexed sound output for computers that do not support it and is is just the next generation of a generally accepted idea, you are clearly wrong.

/Get
Tyken Hightower
Automagical
Join date: 15 Feb 2006
Posts: 472
11-09-2008 09:02
For reference, severe LAWL at insulting the Windows sound system. I dual boot Ubuntu 8.10 and Vista, and guess which causes me the most problems? If Linux is lacking one thing, it's a GOOD, unified sound system. In Vista, I plug things in, and they work. I have no badass sound card, so it's all software mixing. I couldn't give two craps about slightly higher CPU usage, especially not with multiple cores, and especially not in this situation. In Windows, my sound is not delayed or choppy, nor does it get taken over by one program. I can even switch between my USB connected headset and laptop speakers without having to run terminal commands, scripts, or restart X. Amazing!

Having gotten that out of my system.. Get. Out. Of. This. Thread. Mostly Baloo, who is only intent on arguing.

Debate the merits of various sound systems elsewhere. There is an annoying problem with Ubuntu 8.10 and SLVoice - I've been nailed by this too since upgrading, and I'd like to know why. Unless you have something to contribute as to what exactly is happening to break voice or how to fix it without suggesting changing distributions or completely replacing sound systems (which doesn't even work anymore), get out.

I found out back in 8.04 and earlier that Pulse is already ridiculously complicated to configure for SL, and at that point, I was able to remove it and install esound. That worked fine when using the USB connector for my Plantronics headset, though the normal headset and mic jacks have never allowed me to use sound under any configuration. With 8.10, an esound switch no longer works properly either. Also, in 8.10, removing Pulse without carefully disabling system sounds will prevent X from starting at all, as those sounds are hard-coded to use Pulse (ridiculous). I don't know what Canonical changed, and I don't even know where to read documentation about how the whole mess works.
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Opensource Obscure
Hide UI
Join date: 5 Jun 2008
Posts: 115
11-09-2008 11:08
it'd be great and useful to everybod if the discussion lead to some more info on the wiki.
Tyken Hightower
Automagical
Join date: 15 Feb 2006
Posts: 472
11-09-2008 12:50
Oh well, I figured out my problem, anyhow.

I again tried my esound setup, in Ubuntu 8.10:

- Completely remove all pulse-related packages, except some plugins and libraries that are depended upon by xine and such, and install the esound package.
- Verify that every system sound is set to 'disabled,' and system sounds in general are disabled.
- Configure all of the options in the System -> Preferences -> Sounds menu to Autodetect (or ALSA).
- Reboot.

That, in general, worked for most people before 8.10. It didn't work normally for me anymore, though. However, I then applied the fix_cpuinfo.sh patch from this JIRA (https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-5708), in the secondlife/libs/ dir:

CODE
wget https://jira.secondlife.com/secure/attachment/15500/fix_cpuinfo.sh
chmod +x fix_cpuinfo.sh
./fix_cpuinfo.sh

And everything works again. Since I have a silly USB headset dongle, I also do some additional steps to make sure it's the device being used, which probably aren't necessary for anyone else:

CODE
killall esd
asoundconf set-default-card 1
sudo alsa reload
esd -d 1
esd -nobeeps&

Rebooting can probably accomplish the same thing, as it should then make the USB dongle the autodetected hardware device for sound, but who wants that when I can just switch in a couple of commands. These are my two devices..

CODE
cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
HDA Intel at 0xf0000000 irq 22
1 [default ]: USB-Audio - C-Media USB Headphone Set
C-Media USB Headphone Set at usb-0000:00:1d.3-2, full speed

Which is why I use 1 as my card. I've never ever gotten voice capture via my Intel chipset from either a mic plugged into my mic jack or the one built into the front of my laptop. Something's probably not configured correctly anyway, since the mixer shows three capture toggles and a digital when I can't possibly use them.
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Baloo Uriza
Debian Linux Helper
Join date: 19 Apr 2008
Posts: 895
11-10-2008 11:03
From: Tyken Hightower
Oh well, I figured out my problem, anyhow.

I again tried my esound setup, in Ubuntu 8.10:

- Completely remove all pulse-related packages, except some plugins and libraries that are depended upon by xine and such, and install the esound package.


As expected, pulse was part of the problem, not the solution.
Katheryne Helendale
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Join date: 5 Jun 2008
Posts: 2,187
11-11-2008 13:27
From: Tyken Hightower

CODE
cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
HDA Intel at 0xf0000000 irq 22
1 [default ]: USB-Audio - C-Media USB Headphone Set
C-Media USB Headphone Set at usb-0000:00:1d.3-2, full speed

Which is why I use 1 as my card. I've never ever gotten voice capture via my Intel chipset from either a mic plugged into my mic jack or the one built into the front of my laptop. Something's probably not configured correctly anyway, since the mixer shows three capture toggles and a digital when I can't possibly use them.

I'm noticing a pattern here. I don't know if I'm on to something or way out in left field with this, but I'm noticing that many of us with this problem are using HDA Intel chipsets.

Here is what I get on my own laptop:
cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
HDA Intel at 0xf8400000 irq 22

So I'm wondering if maybe there's something special that needs to be configured in Pulse to make it work with SLVoice.

I've managed to get somewhere with my SLVoice problems. I've gotten the client to recognize and use OSS for my voice chat settings, the client attempts and succeeds in connecting to voice chat, and a new sink shows up in Pulseaudio Manager with SLVoice as the client, using OSS emulation. However, I am the only participant in the voice chat listing (even in places where I know others are chatting on voice), and pressing the Talk button does not create a new source listed in paman.

I'm starting to wonder if Pulseaudio is even my problem anymore, since it appears to be doing what it's supposed to do; if maybe there is something incorrect or missing in my installation for handling SIP...

From: Panther Farber

I have been using voice on intrepid (on my laptop) and SUSE (on my desktop) with pulseaudio since they where released and it has worked wonderfully

Could you please post what steps you took to get it to work (or a link if you already did so)? Knowing that someone has been able to successfully get voice to work on Intrepid is encouraging! Also, could you post your output of
CODE
cat /proc/asound/cards
or the relevant section of the output from lspci?
Tyken Hightower
Automagical
Join date: 15 Feb 2006
Posts: 472
11-12-2008 07:32
I can pretty much guarantee you that it's the chipset that causes no end of problems. I just really don't know why it sucks so much.
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Katheryne Helendale
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Join date: 5 Jun 2008
Posts: 2,187
11-13-2008 01:22
From: Tyken Hightower
I can pretty much guarantee you that it's the chipset that causes no end of problems. I just really don't know why it sucks so much.

Me either, considering Intel has been very good to the Linux community, especially lately.

Anyways, I got my voice issues ironed out. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. All I had to do was replace the Vivox runtime libraries and executables with the ones in the experimental release Tofu stickied at the top of this forum -- namely, I replaced /bin/LSVoice, lib/libvivoxsdk.so, lib/libalut.so, lib/libopenal.so.1, and lib/libortp.so with the ones found in the experimental viewer, and everything worked. It even uses ALSA properly, so I didn't need the padsp hack anymore.

The only other thing I needed to do was run the fix-cpuinfo.sh script I found in one of the JIRA's, to fix libvivoxsdk.so.
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