[pulseaudio-discuss] Multiple users (kde) on Debian

[Colin Guthrie]

'Twas brillig, and Jan Braun at 25/08/10 12:08 did gyre and gimble:
> Colin Guthrie schrob:
>>>> As we discussed previously the pseudo session started for the GDM login
>>>> prompt is the right approach here. There is always an "active" user,
>>>
>>> No!!!
>>
>> None of what you said above causes me to doubt the approach we have all
>> previously discussed. The architecture is wrong. Provide a *single*
>> system service that does all the work. Do not run several instances of
>> it for each user or login shell. In the pseudo sessions or real user
>> sessions, run an *agent* that is the lightweight layer that connects to
>> the system process and does the sound output. This way you get *user
>> specific* settings.
> 
> FWIW, I agree that's the best aproach.
> But aren't you PA guys actively fighting this idea? You strongly advise against
> system mode. 

No, you're misunderstanding what I'm suggesting.

I'm not referring to PA, I'm talking about your speech system.

Halim said previously:
> A big problem is that the same user has to start several instances of
> sbl on every console which is hard to implement.

This is what I was referring to when I said you should not run several
instance of it. Your systems should be split cleanly so that they
provide a single system wide service that gathers all the necessary
information (i.e. what is on screen to go via tts), but they should
*not* actually play the speech they generate, but rather *make it
available* to whomever wants to consume it.

Users (or pseudo users) will run lightweight agents which can connect to
this system-wide resource and play it accordingly.

> I'm seriously confused as to whether you're telling Halim here "you need more
> effort than just dmix" or in fact "PA is not (and won't ever be) for you".

I'm saying that the way that the tts systems are working need to be revised.

You can either run separate full systems for each login psuedo session,
or you can split things out into server-client model whereby the server
runs as a system service and agents, running as users, connect to it and
playback the sound (and/or push visuals onto the X11 window). The agents
run as the local user (real or pseudo) and no unauthorised process has
access to the sound or display h/w when they shouldn't.

This is a model that gives users control. Don't want the a11y then kill
the agent. It is not forced upon the user by the sysadmin. In the case
of login pseudo sessions, then yes, this is a sysadmin choice, but
that's acceptable IMO.


Col


-- 

Colin Guthrie
gmane(at)colin.guthr.ie
http://colin.guthr.ie/

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