[xubuntu-users] Sound Systems and Volume Control Programs ?

[David Collins]

Firstly, congratulations to all involved in the creation of Karmic
Xubuntu - it is more functional, prettier - and faster as well !
(specifically, when starting my session after logging in) - and all
this only 6 months since the last upgrade.  It is a glowing example of
the efficiency of open source development.

With change to sound functionality, the upgrade has prompted me to try
to understand sound better.

Can anyone give me an overview of sound systems in Ubuntu?  What is
the relationship between OSS, ALSA, ESD, PulseAudio, etc.?
Does PulseAudio supersede everything else?  Does it sit on top of ALSA?

And what volume/microphone settings program is most appropriate?  The
new system installs 'gnome-volume-control', but I used to use
'xfce-mixer', and I have also tried out 'pavucontrol' which in the deb
package notes 'is a simple GTK+ based volume control tool (mixer) for
the PulseAudio sound server. In contrast to classic mixer tools this
one allows you to control both the volume of hardware devices and of
each playback stream separately'.  Then there is 'gnome-alsamixer' or
is that a cocktail? :)

Regards and thanks,
David Collins