By introduction I'm a hack of a user and not all that aware of the ins and outs of posting to this list let alone the development , configuration , and liabilities of PulseAudio . None of that is the point of my attempting to post . (we'll see if this works ) . I have gone out of my way to search for methods to remove and or disable PluseAudio . My first attempt removed the entire Gnome desktop through my own inattention. You may have seen like cases where "packages to be removed" in synaptic includes the gnome desktop and dummies like me click through . Oh well lesson learned . Subsequent efforts to disable and or remove PulseAudio have been more successful and far less traumatic because I am able to RTFM and learn from mistakes . I however am something more than a casual plug and play user . I am competent if not occasionally dangerous at the command line . I have skills acquired in the early days of *BSD and Solaris . I am not afraid to tinker . I am stating this history to make the point that for a common user that barely knows what a bug report is let alone files one .. Is a plug and play(pray) new Ubuntu user as an alternative to M$ and just wants it to work is capable of understanding the GUI and using software sources and synaptic as well as the update manager and can regularly tie their own shoes with out undo help . Gentlemen and Ladies I have not had any success in total or in part with PulseAudio . I have had a single trip to youtube for instance inactivate all audio on my system(s) . I have had VLC not only fail to produce any audio but seg_fault . I have experienced the aforementioned halting stutter and "latency" in web stream , VLC , MoviePlayer and asterisk based softphones . Suffice to say I didn't bother fixing or configuring it I just found the least path of resistance to audio and deleted , disabled or otherwise worked around it . I still to this moment as a step in installation of even, Lucid stop just after all updates are installed and find some way to eradicate PulseAudio. I just thought a response from the every day user (since 6.04) that has no political nor development agenda might have some small use . If it works I use it . If it doesn't I google it . If google turns up dissension and wildly conflicting oping as to the cause of the malfunction I punt on third down and in this case revert to ALSA which I have had success with . Sorry for the rambling , non technical dissertation but I felt we the users(if I dare speak for more than myself) needed to be heard . Thank You all for your time and patience ~Dennis one of these days I will have an internet connection faster than my computer