Proper PulseAudio installation for KUbuntu 10.4 ; jor KUbuntu

Mark Greenwood captain_bodge at yahoo.co.uk
Thu Jun 24 19:45:42 UTC 2010


On Thursday 24 Jun 2010 08:27:19 giovanni_re wrote:
> What's the proper set of packages, & setup actions, to get PulseAudio
> working properly on KUbuntu 10.4?

There isn't a 'proper' way to enable pulseaudio under Kubuntu, as it's not supported and it doesn't work properly. You can get it to run by installing 'pulseaudio' and 'pavucontrol' as a minimum. padevchooser is obsolete and not required. pavucontrol is the pulseaudio volume control and audio routing application. You should use the Xine backend for Phonon (phonon-xine) and make sure you have the xine pulseaudio package installed, the gstreamer backend is broken. Also, last I heard, the Xine backend also has issues.

You'll find it mostly works, but KDE apps will all use ALSA routing to talk to pulseaudio, or will not produce any audio at all. This problem is fixed in Maverick, but is unlikely to be fixed in Lucid.

Basically, pulseaudio under Kubuntu 10.04 is not supported, and does not work properly.

Mark

> 
> ==  Background
> To assist in Skype setup on a KUbuntu 10.4 system, a friend familiar
> with PA on Ubuntu suggested I install some specific PA packages:
> padevchooser & pavucontrol.  I installed those 2 packages.  Which gave
> me:
> dpkg -l | grep PulseAudio
> ii  gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio             0.10.21-1ubuntu3               
>                 GStreamer plugin for PulseAudio
> ii  libpulse-browse0                    
> 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14 PulseAudio client
> libraries (zeroconf suppor
> ii  libpulse-mainloop-glib0             
> 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14 PulseAudio client
> libraries (glib support)
> ii  libpulse0                           
> 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14 PulseAudio client
> libraries
> ii  padevchooser                         0.9.3-2ubuntu4                 
>                 PulseAudio Device Chooser
> ii  paman                                0.9.4-1ubuntu2                 
>                 PulseAudio Manager
> ii  paprefs                              0.9.9-2ubuntu1                 
>                 PulseAudio Preferences
> ii  pavucontrol                          0.9.9-1                        
>                 PulseAudio Volume Control
> ii  pavumeter                            0.9.3-1ubuntu1                 
>                 PulseAudio Volume Meter
> ii  pulseaudio                          
> 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14 PulseAudio sound server
> ii  pulseaudio-esound-compat            
> 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14 PulseAudio ESD
> compatibility layer
> ii  pulseaudio-module-gconf             
> 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14 GConf module for
> PulseAudio sound server
> ii  pulseaudio-module-x11               
> 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14 X11 module for
> PulseAudio sound server
> ii  pulseaudio-module-zeroconf          
> 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14 Zeroconf module for
> PulseAudio sound server
> ii  pulseaudio-utils                    
> 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14 Command line tools for
> the PulseAudio sound 
> 
> 
> I see here:
> http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/AboutPulseAudio
> "The following obsolete or out-of-date UI tools have been Developed for
> PulseAudio as well:
>     * PulseAudio Manager
>     * PulseAudio Volume Meter
>     * PulseAudio Device Chooser "
> 
> So, the chooser is out of date.  There's no indication on that page what
> it has been replaced with, if anything.
> 
> So, firstly, what is the proper set of packages to get a proper PA
> system installed on KUbuntu?
> 
> I see here:
> http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup
> "Install All Utilities
> Make sure to install all auxiliary GUI tools for the PulseAudio sound
> server:
>     * PulseAudio Volume Control
>     * PulseAudio Volume Meter
>     * PulseAudio Manager OBSOLETE
>     * PulseAudio Device Chooser OBSOLETE
>     * PulseAudio Preferences 
> The packages are pavucontrol pavumeter paman padevchooser paprefs. "
> 
> So, someone should update that page & remove those "oblolete" packages
> from the 
> "Make sure to install" list!  And make sure the resultant list is
> correct.
> 
> 
> Moreover, there should be a list of the proper .deb packages to install
> for an Ubuntu (I'm guessing the #1 most used GNU/Linux distro).
> 
> What packages should be installed?
> Would installing just the 
> ii  pulseaudio                          
> 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14 PulseAudio sound server
> package be sufficient?  Or, should others be installed as well.
> 
> 
> What GUI tools should be installed to allow a user to easily monitor &
> see what settings are in place in the PA system - especially with a view
> to debugging to determine why some audio on the system isn't working,
> like "why can Audacity output properly, but DragonPlayer makes no
> output?" {which is my current problem}.
> 
> All that info should be on that web page.
> 
> 
> =====
> "Current Status
> The PulseAudio daemon and utilities are still under heavy development.
> Although they are generally considered stable, they haven't seen enough
> testing to warrant a first completely stable release."
> 
> So, what are the important things to be aware of?
> And what are estimated dates for future feature releases?
> 
> That is crucial info, given that 
> http://pulseaudio.org/
> shows no releases since Nov 2009 - 6 months ago.
> 
> 
> =====  Home page improvements:
> The PA home page would be greatly improved for potential users if
> several items were added to it:
> 1) A few sentences about "what is the purpose of PA?  What uses/needs
> does it fulfull?  For users?  For developers?
> 2) Here is the suggested set of sw you should install.
> 
> ======
> I'm sending this question to the KUbuntu & PulseAudio mailing lists.
> 
> =========
> So, what is the proper set of packages to get a proper PA system
> installed on KUbuntu?
> 
> Thanks for your help :)
> 
> 




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