[pulseaudio-discuss] Pulseaudio for two sessions at the same time

[Noel David Torres Taño]

On Jueves 09 Diciembre 2010 10:06:00 Colin Guthrie escribió:
[...]
> Now what is happening in your case is one of three things (the last is
> the most likely):
> 
[...]
>  3. One or both of your users is in the "audio" group. This bypasses all
> the nice ACL and session switching logic, but only really works if your
> sound hardware supports hardware mixing or you have specific reason to
> do something non-standard (see below). Just type "groups" in a terminal
> to see if you are in the audio group and if so, use the appropriate
> tools to remove this and then reboot (make sure you do this for both
> users) and you should get smooth switching of users.

Yes, we were both in the audio group, so both can lock the device. This is 
solved and now it works using ConsoleKit, but...
> 
> > How can we get session working in both sessions at the same time?
> 
> Well that's the important question. Do you *really* want it to work at
> the same time, or do you want it to hand over gracefully when you switch
> sessions. Most systems (including OSX and Windows etc. - although I've

I need both sessions sounding at the same time, even when none of them are on 
screen. Example: There can be music sounding in my wife's session while Pidgin 
is open in my session, and I want the message alert to sound, for me to come 
to computer, switch sessions and see who contacted me. Or, I can be working 
alone, and need to go to VT1 to check something there as root, and my music 
stops when I go there. So yes, I really want both sessions sounding at the 
same time, even when not on screen.
> had odd experience with Windows...) do the latter but some users want
> the former.
> 
> If you fix/debug the above mentioned issues, then you'll get a nice
> handover, but if you really do want both at the same time output, then
> the simplest way (if you are generally always logged in) is as follows:
>  1. Add your user to the audio group, but not your wife.
>  2. Login as you.
>  3. Start paprefs and tick the "Enable Network Access" box.
>  4. Copy the file ~/.pulse-cookie to your wife's home directory (so that
> you both have the same cookie file).
>  5. Edit/create the file ~/.pulse/client.conf in your wife's home
> directory and put the line "default-server = localhost"
> 
> This will mean you run the PA daemon and your wife connects to your
> daemon. You can also use a system-wide daemon but this is probably
> easier and at least means one user can benefit from SHM IPC whereas with
> system-wide no users can.
> 
> HTHs

It helped :) Now we both can have half-time sound, and that is better than one 
getting no sound :)

How can this be accomplished using a server-wide PA? (Note: yes, I know 
"WhatIsWrongWithSystemMode" but it is not true that either my or my wife's 
sessions are always open, nor that it is always the same session the first to 
be opened, so, strage as it can be, I need the equivalent solution using a 
server wide instance.

many many thanks for PA itself and this answer

Noel
er Envite