[pulseaudio-discuss] ACLs for USB devices on Debian GNU/Linux Squeeze/testing

[Frode Severin Hatlevik]

First of all, I will like to say thank you for a great piece of
software. PulseAudio makes sound a mor pleasant experinence.

Now to my problem. It is not with PA itself, but rather a matter of
setting up my system to make things work. I have several USB devices;
all from Logitech, incidently; that I want to use with my laptop. I am
using Debian GNU/Linux Squeeze/testing on an i686 kernel.

Before using PA I had my users in the "audio" group. After using PA
for a while I removed all users from the "audio" group, and this
solved all issues with user switching. I will try to reflect this in
the Debian Wiki after successfully sorting out my present issue. The
Debian wiki page for sound seems rather dated; it does not mention PA
at all.

After purging users from the "audio" group I am no longer able to use
my USB sound devices; nether my headset nor the mic on my webcam works
anymore, they simlly disappeared form the PA subsystem. The devices
worked befor the purge. I have been advised that this is due to the
lack of ACLs for the device nodes in /dev/snd, but I am at a loss in
how to set this up in Debian. I understand that configuring the
devicenodes is a task for the hotplug system together with udev and
ConsoleKit, but I have little experience with setting theese up.

Here are some snippets from the setup of my system:

I use KDE and xine-backend for Phonon.

frode at reepicheep:~$ uname -a
Linux reepicheep 2.6.32-5-686 #1 SMP Sat Jul 24 02:27:10 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

When no USB device is plugged in:
frode at reepicheep:~$ ls -l /dev/snd
totalt 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root       60 aug.   7 23:51 by-path
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 10 aug.   6 23:43 controlC0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  9 aug.   6 23:43 hwC0D0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  8 aug.   6 23:43 hwC0D1
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  7 aug.   7 23:51 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  6 aug.   7 23:51 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  5 aug.   7 21:47 pcmC0D1p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  4 aug.   6 23:43 pcmC0D2c
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  3 aug.   6 23:43 seq
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  2 aug.   6 23:43 timer

After pluging in my Logitech USB headset:
frode at reepicheep:~$ ls -l /dev/snd
totalt 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root       60 aug.   7 23:57 by-id
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root       80 aug.   7 23:57 by-path
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 10 aug.   6 23:43 controlC0
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116, 13 aug.   7 23:57 controlC1
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  9 aug.   6 23:43 hwC0D0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  8 aug.   6 23:43 hwC0D1
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  7 aug.   7 23:51 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  6 aug.   7 23:51 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  5 aug.   7 21:47 pcmC0D1p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  4 aug.   6 23:43 pcmC0D2c
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116, 12 aug.   7 23:57 pcmC1D0c
crw-rw----  1 root audio 116, 11 aug.   7 23:57 pcmC1D0p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  3 aug.   6 23:43 seq
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  2 aug.   6 23:43 timer

frode at reepicheep:~$ mount |grep udev
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)


I need some help in figuring out how to set this up on my system.
Please also see
http://pulseaudio.org/ticket/824#comment:10
for some background information.

Please let me know if more information about my system setup is required.

Regards
;)Frode

-- 
Da sa Gud: "Det bli lys!"
Og det ble lys.
                      1. Mosebok 1.3

And God said, "Let there be light,"
and there was light.
                      Genesis 1:3, NIV