[pulseaudio-discuss] system-wide daemon

[Colin Guthrie]

'Twas brillig, and Markus Rechberger at 09/02/10 02:16 did gyre and gimble:
> On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 3:01 AM,  <olin.pulse.7ia at shivers.mail0.org> wrote:
>> Bill Cox:
>>> While the "right" way is not system-wide mode, in practice, I find
>>> system-wide mode to be very stable and usable on Ubuntu systems that
>>> have multiple users trying to send sound to the speakers.
>>
>> So, I'm still wondering: what *is* the "right way" for this use case? Is it
>> the case that PulseAudio just doesn't address it?
> 
> There is no right way pulseaudio was not designed to support multiple
> users at the same time (without the depreciated exception of running
> it as system wide daemon).

Indeed. PA is principally meant to be run per-user. Each user logged in
will have their own PA process running and each will monitor a system
service called "ConsoleKit" which tracks which user is active. We adhere
to whatever ConsoleKit tells us with regards to which user is currently
"active" (see ck-list-sessions) and only the active user has access to
the sound hardware.

Think about how switching users works (on Linux and on Windows/OSX).
Only the user whose desktop is currently presented will be allowed to
use sound, the other user's sound is "corked" until they become active
again.

That is the *right* way and the default way. If you want something
different then you can but you'll have to get your hands a little dirty.

Col

-- 

Colin Guthrie
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http://colin.guthr.ie/

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