[pulseaudio-discuss] system-wide daemon

[Maarten Bosmans]

Bah, wrong thread

2010/2/10 Maarten Bosmans <mkbosmans at gmail.com>:
> 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
>