[pulseaudio-discuss] recommended PA config for an "embedded" box

[Ng Oon-Ee]

On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 17:24 -0700, Brandon Kuczenski wrote:
> Maarten Bosmans wrote:
> > 2010/6/3 Manuel Klemenz <m.klemenz at gmx.at>:
> >> Hi guys...
> >>
> >> I'm running a small Linux box/server in my home network where also my speaker
> >> are attached. this box is running 24/7 (at least almost) and only accessible
> >> over network - so no mouse, keyboard or video output is attached thereto.
> > 
> > I've got something similar here, but mostly using the sound server for
> > recording/streaming purposes with a USB soundcard.
> > 
> >> A year ago I set up the box to run pulseaudio as system wide deamon in order
> >> to route my laptop's sound output there when I'm at home (utilizing gentoo's
> >> init-scripts). As I've read in PA's wiki, this setup is strongly discouraged
> >> and PA shouldn't be run in this way. Additionally those scripts are no longer
> >> installed after updating/upgrading PA to 0.9.21
> > 
> > In Ubuntu the init script is still available. (disabled by default, of course)
> > 
> >> so here's my question: how do I avoid this config - or in other words, what's
> >> the recommended way for such a setup?
> > 
> > I would say that this is one of the few (perhaps the only?) cases in
> > which system wide PulseAudio makes sense. It is discouraged mainly for
> > desktops setups. You can search the mailing list archives for a
> > rationale.
> > 
> 
> It's certainly not the only case.  To me, it's a naturally desirable 
> feature.
> 
> I'd just like to take this opportunity to urge the developers to 
> maintain the "system wide" configuration option.. I understand the 
> motivation for advising against the sound server setup for most users, 
> but I strongly hope that this usage does not become deprecated.
> 
> I hope the *capacity* to do this is maintained in the future, even if 
> (for whatever reason) the docs remain prejudiced against it.  I'd hate 
> to see it go away by fiat.  Without it, pulseaudio only reaches half its 
> potential :)

Its not something that is 'taken away'. From a code-base perspective I
think pretty much the same things are run, except run as root and hence
without the shared-memory advantage, as well as being a security issue.
I'm not sure if pulseaudio is really zero-copy when run as root, not
familiar with the codebase.