[pulseaudio-discuss] about module-suspend-on-idle (feature request: split modules for analog/digital?)

[Tom Yan]

Hi all.

By default module-suspend-on-idle is loaded to "Automatically suspend
sinks/sources that become idle for too long", but it has been causing
problem to digital sinks (and probably sources as well).

For example, if you have used pulse with any HDMI/DP/SPDIF sound
devices, you would probably experience delays of output at the
begining of the playback (unless you were already playing something
through the same sink not too long ago). And if you pause the
playback, and resume it after some time, the delays also come.

But for analog output, this problem does not seem to exist.

I am not sure if this module really means much on, for example, power
saving, or other purposes that I didn't even think of, but probably it
exists for a reason (and there must be people who find it essential
anyway).  So I would like to suggest spliting the modules into two,
one for analog and one for digital, so that users can "fine tune" this
"suspend-on-idle" behaviour. And of course, if it's feasible to have
an option in certain config file instead, that would probably be a
better way (like, suspend-on-idle=analog/digital/both).