[pulseaudio-discuss] Networking and volume control

[Karsten]

Thanks for your response Matt.

Am 31.10.20 um 20:39 schrieb Matt Garman:
> My understanding is that PulseAudio never explicitly *needs* a desktop
> environment for running or configuration.

Yes - but in Debian PulseAudio is started per user when the desktop interface comes up.

> Like many traditional Unix
> daemons, the config is stored in text files on the filesystem.

When i have a look in ~/.config/pulse then i find a couple of tdb files.

24K Nov  1 09:47 6f0e4728711645b09a25d9a8fbf78e3b-card-database.tdb
    1 Nov  1 16:30 6f0e4728711645b09a25d9a8fbf78e3b-default-sink
    1 Nov  1 16:30 6f0e4728711645b09a25d9a8fbf78e3b-default-source
24K Nov  1 09:47 6f0e4728711645b09a25d9a8fbf78e3b-device-manager.tdb
12K Nov  1 09:58 6f0e4728711645b09a25d9a8fbf78e3b-device-volumes.tdb
12K Nov  1 15:32 6f0e4728711645b09a25d9a8fbf78e3b-stream-volumes.tdb
256 Okt 25 09:08 cookie

After installing the package tdb-tools i could get a readable output of this files with tdbdump
The content is not a simple text file but a key/data database that looks like

{
key(26) = "alsa_card.pci-0000_04_05.0"
data(448) =
"B\04NL\00\00\00\0Btanalog-input-mic;input-microphone-1\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00Ntanalog-input-mic;input-microphone-2\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00Ntanalog-input-linein\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00Ntanalog-input-aux\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00Ntanalog-input-video\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00Ntiec958-stereo-input\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00Ntanalog-output;output-amplifier-on\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00Ntanalog-output;output-amplifier-off\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00Ntanalog-output-mono;output-amplifier-on\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00Ntanalog-output-mono;output-amplifier-off\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00Ntiec958-stereo-output\00r\00\00\00\00\00\00\00\00NNN"
}

Now i have no sound again and the interesting question is where to search for the difference to the last login?
The directory ~/.pulse does not exist in Debian 10.

> Most of these are in /etc/pulse, at least for system-wide config and

Yes - this seems to be static since installation of the package.

> defaults.  Per-user config goes in ~/.pulse/ or ~/.config/pulse.  I
> believe there may be other paths the daemon searches for configs, but
> /etc/pulse is a typical starting point.
>
> For my Raspberry Pi, I just ssh into it and do all the configuration
> using a text editor.

I think you are configuring /etc/pulse/client.conf and /etc/pulse/daemon.conf ?
The tdb files seems to be generated dynamically.

> Alsa definitely has commandline tools and
> text-based GUIs for things like volume adjustment and playback (e.g.
> amixer, aplayer, alsamixer).  I don't know offhand if PulseAudio has
> similar text-based tools, but I'd be surprised if it didn't!

ALSA is much better known in contrast to PulseAudio.

Cheers
karsten