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

[Michael Trausch]

PA works well with stereo-only outputs. That's most users.

People such as myself, however, with 5.1 out, are perpetually disappointed
and/or frustrated by the lack of the systems ability to work reliably. I
constantly have problems playing music, because it reverts to stereo output
every time it is opened. It happens in all distributions that have PA, so
it isn't a bug in packaging or configuration, unless all distress and
upstream itself get it all wrong.
On Aug 19, 2012 11:24 PM, "Canek Peláez Valdés" <caneko@×××××.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>