[pulseaudio-discuss] Accessing audio as root

[Ng Oon-Ee]

On Sat, 2009-12-26 at 08:31 +0100, Halim Sahin wrote:
> Hi,
> On Do, Dez 24, 2009 at 06:27:25 +0100, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> > On Fri, 25.12.09 00:47, Ng Oon-Ee (ngoonee at gmail.com) wrote:
> > 
> > > > Running PA doesn't mean ALSA is out of the game. PA builds on ALSA and
> > > > as such everything you could do with ALSA before stays available with
> > > > PA too.
> > > > 
> > > > However input output deamons should definitely be part of the user
> > > > session. That is true for PA itself AND any kind of speech daemon and suchlike.
> > > > 
> > > > Lennart
> > > > 
> > > I believe in his particular use-case he's concerned about the
> > > screenreader prior to the DE starting up (boot messages and the like?).
> > 
> > We actually cover that inside of gdm, where you can get access to the
> > boot messages.
> 
> Ok what about consolescreenreaders like sbl brltty or speakup?
> They need a working audiosystem to provide
> usefull stuff before login or to read the login pprompt.
> With pulseaudio I need to login without feedback, start the speech server and
> then restart the screenreader.
> 
> sorry folks I seems that you can't sink of usecases other than yours.
> Facts are:
> You have developed a new audio system which brings more flexibility and
> features to us.
> Unfortunately you expect that all projects should rewrite their audio
> stuff to work with your system.
> By design mac and windows are not comparable with linux
> because they are not a multi user OS.
> 
> For german users:
> http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/stud/unix-ag-bhb/node27.html
> 
> changing  the unix behaviour is the main problem here.
> Maybe you don't need this but others do.
> 
> It should be possible to use the audiosystem the (old way).
> 
> Just my 2 cents.
> Halim
> 
I've been following these discussions with some (layman-level, I don't
dev for pulse) interest, and I'm wondering whether a simple solution
would be to use alsa-output prior to login and pulseaudio after login. A
bit of configuration required instead of re-writing apps. Something
would have to be done to get the screen reader to not hog the hw when
the user is logged in, that shouldn't be too difficult though.

I must admit its good to hear of an actual use-case where such behaviour
is useful, instead of some of the random complaining that comes here
seasonally.