[pulseaudio-discuss] How Do I avoid System Mode?

[Jim Duda]

Hello,

I have a couple of computers which are "headless" nodes.  I run the pulseaudio sound server
on them for network audio, however, no user ever logs in.  Because of this, I am forced to 
run the pulseaudio server in system mode.  I know of all the reasons which I shouldn't be
using system mode.  Is there some other means I can run these "headless" machines to use
pulseaudio without system mode?  How can I fake the the system out such that they think
a user is logged in?  I haven't yet figured out how pulseaudio auto starts on a system
which a user logged into gnome. I realize it has something to do with esdcompat, however,
I don't understand the hook into gnome itself.

Both of these headless nodes run a streamlined version of Fedora 10.  They don't run
all the typcical services which a login node would run. For example, they don't run
"dbus", but they could.  I'm not sure which services matter to pulse.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Jim