[pulseaudio-discuss] Conception of PulseAudio in public through Debian

[Oon-Ee Ng]

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Roman Beslik <rabeslik at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 17.04.12 05:12, Oon-Ee Ng wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 8:35 PM, Roman Beslik<rabeslik at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello.
>>>
>>> IMHO this is because PulseAudio is somewhat buggy to go into polished
>>> distributions. I hardly could use it on Arch Linux, and I am accustomed
>>> to
>>> general Arch Linux's instability. (Arch Linux is bleeding-edge by
>>> definition.) Distributions jumped to PulseAudio too soon. Also, the
>>> developers of PulseAudio could split the source code into stable and
>>> trunk
>>> branches.
>>
>>
>> Instability? I'm not sure which Arch Linux you use, but mine is fine,
>> with pulseaudio (and without gnome) as well.... Extrapolating a single
>> user's experiences to a distribution or project is hardly indicative,
>> and Arch offers you a choice on using pulse or not (Gnome doesn't, but
>> that's another story).
>
> Bear in mind that you also are extrapolating your experience. Actually, the
> original poster (OP) is talking about bugs, so this is at least a two user
> experience.
>
> There are a lot of complaints. E.g., search "crackling sound" on Arch Linux
> forums. I even saw complaints on forums not dedicated to Linux at all.
> Negative image of PulseAudio is becoming folklore.
>
> Returning to OP's claim, please, share your thoughts. Do you think that the
> claim is false or you have competing suggestions at hand?

I stated that my install is fine, you stated that pulseaudio is buggy
based on your install. But since you wish to extrapolate, please take
a look at [1] and the 43.43% install-rate of pulseaudio in Arch
systems (compared to 35.57% install-rate for the Gnome DE, so at least
8% installed pulseaudio by choice, not by its being a forced
dependency). This is from 60,798 submissions.

How many complaints are there on pulseaudio in the Arch forums again?
I've seen many complaints about linux-3.3 as well (to do with ath3k
currently) - should the kernel have a negative image as well? In my
experience the reporting of problems related to pulseaudio (and I do
read almost every thread on pulseaudio that appears on the forum),
there are two types of problems:-
1) PEBKAC - about half the problems. These are the same users who make
mistakes editing config files, update repo database without doing a
full upgrade, and only know the AUR as 'that thing accessible through
yaourt'. This includes your 'crackling sound' group, because really -
the solution to this problem (which is actually a problem with the
sound card drivers) is readily available online with a simple config
file change
2) Unsupported soundcard/use-case - primarily 7.1/5.1 soundcards or
running system-wide

Neither of these indicates a big problem with pulseaudio per se
(arguably number 2 does, but the technical reasons behind it are sound
IMO). Does pulse have bugs? Sure. Does it have MORE bugs than other
software? Highly unlikely.

Regarding OP - yes, Debian should update, but that's something that
can't happen with the way Debian is structured, I believe.