[pulseaudio-discuss] Pulseaudio 0.16-test4 - my experience

[Maxim Levitsky]

On Thu, 2009-08-06 at 17:47 +0300, Maxim Levitsky wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-08-06 at 16:20 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> > On Thu, 06.08.09 17:06, Maxim Levitsky (maximlevitsky at gmail.com) wrote:
> > 
> > > So I carefully set everything up for it, and it now works (except 32 bit
> > > compat libraries for skype )
> > > 
> > > Speaking of 32 bit compat libraries, is there a tutorial how to compile
> > > these? (It isn't trivial, since I need alsa, pa libraries and plugins
> > > for alsa)
> > 
> > No clue. Multilib is a desaster. If you want this at all, use what
> > your distro provides you with.
> Don't know, but with current 32 bit libraries skype through PA is
> completely broken, I just hear a skipping sound. 
> 
> > 
> > > 1 - all sounds played through libcanberra (using pulse backend) (which
> > > was installed from source (everything from latest git branches), play on
> > > right speaker only, and this is confirmed by pavucontrol which display
> > > the volume for notify sound briefly (which I consider a bug on its own,
> > > because this makes it impossible to change a stream location - clicking
> > > on the stream chooser button, takes focus out of it, thus prevents
> > > device list from being shown)
> > > It displays "front right"
> > 
> > Hmm, is it possible that this is related to spacial events sounds?
> > i.e. if you trigger them on the right side of the screen they are
> > moved to your right speakers? If you trigger them on the left side of
> > the screen they are triggered on the left side? If that's the case,
> > then this is a feature, not a bug.
> Doesn't seem so, everything is played on right ear, without connection
> to location of button clicked.
> 
> Also, shouldn't pavuconrol not show the notify sound in playback page?
> (otherwise it is impossible to change device for a stream)
> 
> > 
> > Otherwise, I have never heard of this bug. If you remove
> > ~/.pulse/*stream-volumes.tdb and restart PA. Does that fix the issue?
> I have removed these files many times, it doesn't help at all
> > 
> > > 2 - flat volumes are evil. It feels like a feature being removed. Now
> > > changing a volume for a stream directly affects main volume, and alsa
> > > volume through it.
> > > I though that one of main PA features, was a volume control per stream.
> > > Could you explain me what flat volumes are (I know that turning them off
> > > fixes this issue)?
> > 
> > The device volume is fixed to max of all the stream volumes. That's
> > all.
> > 
> > If you have one stream at -2dB, one at -1dB and one at -3dB then the
> > device volume will be fixed to -1dB. if you then scale the device
> > volume this will be reflected equally on the stream volumes. If you
> > change a stream volume this will only then affect the device volume if
> > it is the "loudest" one which you modify.
> > 
> > It's actually pretty easy. 
> Ah, I got it, then it is fine.
> > 
> > > 3 - PA sometimes dies, and it is impossible to make it log to a file,
> > > other that writing a wrapper script. Wrapper script doesn't help much
> > > ether, as new autostart feature, tries to launch many copies of PA, and
> > > only one starts. This creates a lots of 'false positives'
> > > I can disable autostart, but then, I need to write a tool to autostart
> > > and restart it, maybe this is the right solution.
> > > (syslog doesn't seem to be able to put an output of a daemon to a file.
> > > of course I can grep the log files, but having a clean seperate log
> > > files seems to be better.
> > 
> > Please set log-level=debug in daemon.conf and the debug output should
> > end up in syslog.
> I know, and don't like this, I don't like grepping it, I want to have a
> seperate log file.
> 
> > 
> > Which distribution is this? For tsched to work fine you need a *very*
> > recent kernel (i.e. as in "not released yet") which provides a fixed
> > snd_pcm_avail().
> Ubunty, with 2.6.31-rc5 kernel (from git)

Oh, ubuntu 9.04 :-)

I compiled pulseaudio, libcanberra, alsa-lib.
I have installed udev from 9.10 (was a bit lazy to install from source),
gstreamer also from -git (updated it today in hope of a fix for volume
bug)


> 
> >  
> > 
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=506075
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=501769
> > 
> > > And recently I did another update of alsa library, and PA.
> > > Now controlling the sound via gstreamer (from gnome-volume-control, and
> > > other places like applet, sound wheel) is broken, now
> > > it works like that, first slider seems to work, but then it stops
> > > updating the volume, untill I close and start mixer again, (or select a
> > > different device from device list in gnome-volume-control, and back)
> > > and it repeats
> > 
> > Sounds as if PA simply dies due to the mentioned snd_pcm_avail()
> > problems.
> No it doesn't. pulseaudio continues to work just fine, but volume slider
> just doesn't change the volume.
> 
> > 
> > Also note that recent g-v-c does not user Gst anymore, but connects
> > directly to pa. Make sure to use that as Gst's mixer abstraction is
> > uh, less than awesome.
> Does it support changing alsa mixer, or only PA (I already got one for
> Pa - pavucintrol)
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 	Maxim Levitsky
>