[pulseaudio-discuss] Question about Pulseaudio hardware abstraction

[Jim Kent]

I have a question about how Pulseaudio functions between sound hardware and
applications in Linux and spins. I noticed both Firefox and Chromium
internally report many hardware details, including the sound output chipset
and connected Bluetooth devices (with unique identifiers).

I assumed that Pulseaudio behaved as an opaque interface between software
and hardware, in other words, applications send and receive inputs and
outputs to Pulseaudio, which in turn mixes and exclusively communicates
with sound hardware. Instead, I have noticed many instances where browsers
exhibit unintended control over sound outputs, for instance, playing a
youtube video will sometimes abruptly disconnect a Bluetooth headset.

Is this behavior by design? Is it possible to sandbox applications from the
sound hardware so that they only communicate and have a view of Pulseaudio,
rather than the underlying hardware? Could something like Jack accomplish
this?
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