| 1 |
Hello, Gentoo. |
| 2 |
|
| 3 |
I've just removed pulseaudio from my main Gentoo system. Why? Several |
| 4 |
reasons: |
| 5 |
|
| 6 |
(i) It's a "sound server", a description I don't understand. What does |
| 7 |
it _do_? Why do I want it? It seems to be an unnecessary layer of fat |
| 8 |
between sound applications and the kernel. |
| 9 |
|
| 10 |
(ii) I was having problems with the last 1-2 seconds being cut off audio |
| 11 |
streams from news sites. |
| 12 |
|
| 13 |
(iii) The provenance of the code; it's author is also udev's maintainer, |
| 14 |
the udev that has given most of us so much fun over the months. When |
| 15 |
might awkwardnesses start appearing in pulseaudio? |
| 16 |
|
| 17 |
By the way, I run sound stuff mainly in Gnome 2, using aqualung to play |
| 18 |
CDs and listening to audio files streamed or downloaded from the net. |
| 19 |
|
| 20 |
So, I grasped the nettle, put in a negative pulseaudio use flag, unmerged |
| 21 |
pa and alsa-plugins, then rebuilt the 14 packages which needed it. |
| 22 |
|
| 23 |
Surprisingly, everything still works. I now get those last seconds from |
| 24 |
my news streams. :-) |
| 25 |
|
| 26 |
So, yes, I can recomment the removal of pulseaudio, unless anybody's got |
| 27 |
some particular need for it. |
| 28 |
|
| 29 |
-- |
| 30 |
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). |
Archives