[pulseaudio-discuss] Sharing logged in users instance over TCP better than systemwide daemon?

[Maarten Bosmans]

2011/12/31 Graeme Pietersz <graeme.pietersz at gmail.com>:
>> Conceptally a system daemon ran from an /etc/init.d script is a better
>> fit to make a sound server available than a auto-logon user.
>
> I can see that, but after all the warnings about a system wide daemon
> being unsupported I was looking for a least bad solution.

It's still true that system-wide mode is wrong for a lot of common use
cases, even in some were it appears to be an easy way to get what you
want. The proposed workaround that you mentioned (adding a separate
user for a network-enabled pulse daemon) is even worse though.

> Perhaps this should be mentioned in the wiki? The only use case
> mentioned for a system wide daemon there is an embedded system or a
> thin client. There are also lots of scary warnings on this page:
>
> http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/WhatIsWrongWithSystemMode
>
> including this:
>
>    But my Gentoo/... distro is shipping an init script for PA!
>
>    Ignore that. It's stupid. They shouldn't be doing this.
>
> Which, again, appears over the top given there is a reasonably common
> case for which it is the right solution.

Yup, this could be better stated, more nuanced. It's important to note
though that for desktop scenario's (even with e.g. mpd) you're better
of in normal per-user mode. System-wide (and by extension the init
script) is mainly usefull for a sound server accessible over the
network.

It's a wiki (hint, hint)

Maarten