Re: [gentoo-user] Should I install pulseaudio to solve my phonon audio problems?

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 9:11 PM, João Matos <jaoneto@×××××.com> wrote:
> Hi list.
>
> The KDE phonon can't work properly when I plug a USB audio card (like a
> webcam with microphone) neither recognize my bluetooth headset.
>
> When I used to try to use my webcam microphone, phonon got lost every time
> I've reboot the system. It always asked me to forget the devices, as if
> there were new sound cards every time the system rebooted. It also wasn't
> able to decide which should be the default sound card. Sometimes it guessed
> correctly, most the time not. Other problems: when kde had the control of a
> device, none application outside kde were able to use it, as skype or
> mplayer.
>
> The solution I found then was to disable the support from my webcam's audio
> card on kernel. Without the USB card support, my system get back to normal
> behavior and I was able to use the webcam. Of course, it was kinda extreme.
>
> So, I was wondering if use pulseaudio should fix it, but I'm not sure if it
> can help. What do you think?
>
> Any help will be appreciated.

I've been using GNOME + PulseAudio since the later become stable in
Gentoo. Could not be more happy: my usecase is very similar to yours:
I have a BT headset, and a pair of USB speakers, which include a sound
card. With PulseAudio, the USB speakers works automagically; I don't
need to do anything, and I can change with a click where the audio
goes out, either the included speakers, or the USB ones. With the BT
headset I just need to pair it in the GNOME Bluetooth settings, and
it's the same, I can change where the audio streams go with one click,
and also set it per application.

I also use PA in my Media Center, and the audio quality is... pretty
much the same that without PA, but you get a lot of benefits.

Just take in mind that I use GNOME; I do not know how different (if at
all) it will be with KDE.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México