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 * The sound stack in Linux is probably the weakest link in Linux-as-a-desktop, and documentation on the web is often conflicting, out-of-date and dispiriting.

 * As of 2013-07 there isn't clear documentation about how to set up sound for a wheezy desktop. There appears to be two different ideas of how sound should work - should the sound system know about sound applications and send the output to some device or should the application have a gadget to select the device. It appears that Debian has chosen to default to the pulseaudio paradigm ( Pulseaudo by default removes some of ALSA's functionality and at least appears to break some applications). Some advise to remove any trace of PulseAudio, others say PulseAudio is the future. The claim is that you can have both, but as of wheezy, this is a complex and non standard installation. The next layer is how the Desktop relates to the sound system.
 * The sound stack in Linux has been the weakest link in Linux-as-a-desktop, and documentation on the web is often conflicting, out-of-date and dispiriting. Part of the problem is that pulseaudio was released before it was ready. The good news is that as of wheezy it pretty much works as advertised.
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 * ALSA was working pretty well until the push to use pulse audio - pulseaudio was somewhat of a mess in squeeze and it doesn't seem to want to easily co-exist with ALSA in wheezy.  * ALSA was working pretty well until the push to use pulse audio - pulseaudio was somewhat of a mess in squeeze.
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 * [[Blutooth Sound Devices]]  * [[Blutooth Sound Devices]] Works under KDE with bluedevil as the GUI as of wheezy

 * The fact - contrary to what is stated in many places on the web - is that as of wheezy, you can have ALSA, pulseaudio, phonon, and Jackd all running at the same time - interacting peacefully for the most part. ( Instructions here from the 'Pulseaudio maintenance team'' on how to provide useful bug reports would be helpful. )pkg-pulseaudio-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
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 * [[ALSA]]
 * [[en/PulseAudio|PulseAudio]]
 * [[jackd2]] Low latency sound system (perhaps we should be standardizing on Jack?)
 * [[phonon]] KDE's sound interface
 * [[ALSA]] Provides the driver level code for sound and a basic application interface
 * [[en/PulseAudio|PulseAudio]] Provides a more advanced application interface and can glue ALSA, jackd, phonon together
 * [[jackd2]] Low latency sound system for pro audio mixing.
 * [[phonon]] KDE's sound interface - the setup can set configurations that pulseaudio uses to pick which sound device to use
 * [[buledevil]] KDE gui app for the bluetooth headsets stack
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 * [[timidity]] Software sound renderer (MIDI sequencer, MOD player)
 * [[rosegarden]] Music scoring software with hooks for midi based sound

Translation(s): English - Français - Italiano

(!) ?Discussion


Configuration

Overview of current state

  • The sound stack in Linux has been the weakest link in Linux-as-a-desktop, and documentation on the web is often conflicting, out-of-date and dispiriting. Part of the problem is that pulseaudio was released before it was ready. The good news is that as of wheezy it pretty much works as advertised.
  • According to the PulseAudio folks, this is how you should see your sound system: Graphic of PulseAudio based system

  • According to ALSA this is how you should see your sound system: Graphic of ALSA based system

  • According to Jackd, this is how you should see your sound system: Graphic of Jackd based system

  • ALSA was working pretty well until the push to use pulse audio - pulseaudio was somewhat of a mess in squeeze.

    Here is a bit of an http://tuxradar.com/content/how-it-works-linux-audio-explained explanation of the different sound services found in linux systems.

  • ?Blutooth Sound Devices Works under KDE with bluedevil as the GUI as of wheezy

  • The fact - contrary to what is stated in many places on the web - is that as of wheezy, you can have ALSA, pulseaudio, phonon, and Jackd all running at the same time - interacting peacefully for the most part. ( Instructions here from the 'Pulseaudio maintenance team on how to provide useful bug reports would be helpful. )pkg-pulseaudio-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org

Programs

  • ALSA Provides the driver level code for sound and a basic application interface

  • ?PulseAudio Provides a more advanced application interface and can glue ALSA, jackd, phonon together

  • ?jackd2 Low latency sound system for pro audio mixing.

  • ?phonon KDE's sound interface - the setup can set configurations that pulseaudio uses to pick which sound device to use

  • ?buledevil KDE gui app for the bluetooth headsets stack

MIDI

Filetypes


CategorySound