[Klug-general] Surround Sound

James Morris jwm.art.net at gmail.com
Fri Apr 22 17:51:12 UTC 2011


On 22 April 2011 18:37, James Morris <jwm.art.net at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22 April 2011 14:18, Paul Littlefield <info at paully.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> If I have to use PulseAudio, I'll use that but ALSA seems to be more widely
>> used these days and if jumping to an unstable PPA to get 1.0.24+ fixes it
>> then I will jump.
>>
>
> It's not so much a choice between ALSA or PulseAudio, more of a choice
> between ALSA, or, PulseAudio on top of ALSA, where, ALSA is the kernel
> level sound driver providing Input/Ouput to the hardware, and
> PulseAudio does all the stuff that as a user (of a desktop environment
> usually) you'll find useful, like the ability for to be notified that
> an application hasn't crashed by playing tada.wav without interrupting
> the undoubted listening pleasure of kajagoogoo in your favourite media
> player.

That being said, ALSA can actually handle simultaneous playback of
audio by different applications via it's DMIX plugin which is
configured by default these days, so I'm not entirely sure what the
benefits of PulseAudio actually are. I couldn't try it out even if I
wanted to because Pulse doesn't work on my sound card.

James.

PS the description above is of a fictitious user and any relation to
any real person, or fictional person, or imaginary person, is purely
coincidental.

PPS sorry for taking a thread in a ridiculous direction again,
especially when I know this has been discussed before.



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