[pulseaudio-discuss] system-wide daemon

[Maarten Bosmans]

2010/2/9  <olin.pulse.7ia at shivers.mail0.org>:
> Maybe I'm wrong. I can't figure out *what* the model is, really. When I click
> on padevchooser's "Configure Local Sound Server" entry, I get a window whose
> "Network Server" tab lets me "enable network access to local sound devices."
> Furthermore, I can set or clear a checkbox for "Don't require authentication."
> But I can find nowhere any description of what this authentication would be.
> The documentation for PulseAudio is pretty weak; it mostly says that "things
> work; just try them out." That's not documentation.

Perhaps the confusion stems from the fact that PulseAudio has two
different modes. The normal per-user mode, which should almost always
be used, uses the model of a single user having access to the hardware
of a single seat. This works great and really polishes the whole
desktop experience, including support for fast user switching, remote
ssh logins, etc.

The other mode is the system-wide daemon mode. This follows more the
traditional unix model of a dedicated pulse user running a daemon to
which other users can connect. The system mode is more applicable to
an audio server/appliance scenario.
I have, for example, PulseAudio running as a system daemon on a
dedicated server, connected to several speakers around the house. A
local MPD process on the server can play music through the pulse
server, or I can ssh to the box and start an internet radio stream.
Moreover, sound can be redirected from any desktop to the pulse
server, so that even the neighbors can enjoy the YouTube clips I'm
watching.

So when talking about what model PulseAudio uses, it is good to keep
the distinction between per-user and system-wide mode, which have of
course very different models.

Maarten