[pulseaudio-discuss] system-wide daemon

[Bill Cox]

I think this is one area where PulseAudio could be improved, though I
can't quite figure out how!  Surely, there must be some way to allow
specific processes or users to have full sound access, while otherwise
sticking to the one-user-at-a-time model.

I'm trying to port SBL (another console screen reader) to Ubuntu, now,
and so I've got yet another piece of code that will need substantial
changes to work with the one-user-at-a-time model, in addition to
speechd-up, espeakup, and speech-dispatcher.  Grr...  Can't we just
add the concept of an "allowed" user, who gets to play sound no matter
who's logged in?

Bill

On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 3:43 AM, Markus Rechberger <mrechberger at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 9:38 AM, Colin Guthrie <gmane at colin.guthr.ie> wrote:
>> 'Twas brillig, and Markus Rechberger at 09/02/10 02:16 did gyre and gimble:
>>> On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 3:01 AM,  <olin.pulse.7ia at shivers.mail0.org> wrote:
>>>> Bill Cox:
>>>>> While the "right" way is not system-wide mode, in practice, I find
>>>>> system-wide mode to be very stable and usable on Ubuntu systems that
>>>>> have multiple users trying to send sound to the speakers.
>>>>
>>>> So, I'm still wondering: what *is* the "right way" for this use case? Is it
>>>> the case that PulseAudio just doesn't address it?
>>>
>>> There is no right way pulseaudio was not designed to support multiple
>>> users at the same time (without the depreciated exception of running
>>> it as system wide daemon).
>>
>> Indeed. PA is principally meant to be run per-user. Each user logged in
>> will have their own PA process running and each will monitor a system
>> service called "ConsoleKit" which tracks which user is active. We adhere
>> to whatever ConsoleKit tells us with regards to which user is currently
>> "active" (see ck-list-sessions) and only the active user has access to
>> the sound hardware.
>>
>> Think about how switching users works (on Linux and on Windows/OSX).
>> Only the user whose desktop is currently presented will be allowed to
>> use sound, the other user's sound is "corked" until they become active
>> again.
>
>
> Bad example as usual, on OSX everyone (who's permitted to use the
> audio unit) can just log in and use the audio unit.
>
> Markus
> _______________________________________________
> pulseaudio-discuss mailing list
> pulseaudio-discuss at mail.0pointer.de
> https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/pulseaudio-discuss
>