[gentoo-amd64] Re: no sound in firefox java

[Duncan]

Daiajo Tibdixious posted on Sun, 19 Jun 2011 13:48:23 +1000 as excerpted:

> I installed pulseaudio, added the pulseaudio use flag, and rebuild with
> --newuse.
> I went thru <http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup> logged out & in
> from kde,
> and got no sound at all.
> Rebooted and still no sound, in any application.
>
> If I mplayer -ao pulse, it opens the sound okay, but no sound is audible
> if I mplayer -ao alsa it can't find the library, I think thats because
> of the rebuild with pulseaudio use flag.
> There is no /dev/dsp device (which is the oss compatibility device).

I believe Barry and I disagree on pulse.  It's yet another layer between 
the apps and the hardware that can break, and I don't need it, so from my 
perspective I'm better off without it.

As such I know little about it.  However, I *DO* know one of the frequent 
issues with alsa is that it starts with everything muted by default.  You 
have to unmute and set the volumes to something reasonable, then if you 
want it to keep that instead of coming up muted at each boot, you must 
setup something to set it back to the saved settings.  (The GUI desktops 
normally handle it pretty much automatically, so they're "something", or 
setup alsactl to run and set the saved settings at boot, for console-
users.  I believe Gentoo's alsa initscript does that if you put it in a 
runlevel.)

A lot of folks don't know that and think their audio is broken, even tho 
it's simply muted by default.

I've no idea if pulse is similar, tho it would make sense, given you 
don't want something blaring unexpectedly so mute-by-default is a very 
good policy, but if it is, have you checked that it's not simply muted?

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman