[pulseaudio-discuss] using pulseaudio with simultaneous playback from mutiple X sessions

[Ben Bucksch]

BTW: It's not just mpd. Other case: You have only one loudspeaker pair, 
but 5 computers (HTPC, desktop, notebook, netbook, tablet, whatever). 
All should output on the same set of speakers.

In fact, that's the network protocol case. Whenever you need the network 
protocol, you have some other host accessing the speakers of the pulse 
server. And then the other system needs to rely on the speakers being 
there. Here, pulse is most definitely a server in the classical sense 
and must *not* depend on whoever is logged in at the moment. Basically, 
whenever you want the network protocol, you also want the system-wide 
daemon.

And the network transparency for me is the by far coolest feature of 
pulse (esp. because it's done so well and working so flawlessly), that's 
precisely one of the main reasons why I like pulse. Don't tell me it's 
not important or not supported, please!

Ben