[pulseaudio-discuss] new "reserve device" feature?

[Lennart Poettering]

On Mon, 08.06.09 16:41, pl bossart (bossart.nospam at gmail.com) wrote:

> Lennart,
> I was looking at the latest code and in git-master I saw changes to
> the alsa-sink/source files, and a new 'reserve' module. Can you please
> shed some light on why PA would try to lock a device, or resume a sink
> when an ALSA device becomes 'unused'. My understanding was that apps
> using ALSA would see PCM samples redirected to PulseAudio thanks to
> the pulse plugin, and PA would be the only app using hw:0.  What uses
> do you have in mind?

The device reservation logic is intended for cooperation with the JACK
sound server: i.e. when JACK wants direct access it can have it.

http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/device-reservation.html

Other than that session switching needs cooperating PA
instances. i.e. if you switch the session on a PC the previously
active PA instance needs to give up access to the audio devices, and
the new active PA instance needs to open them again. 

Both things are only useful on the desktop i guess.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering                        Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net
http://0pointer.net/lennart/           GnuPG 0x1A015CC4