Safely Remove Pulseaudio?

[Sammaye]

Hi everyone,

I recently upgraded to 9.10 (karmic) and instantly realized I no longer used alsa but instead pulse. This would normally be fine only my games (i.e. fallout 3 and empire total war) only run on alsa.

I have tried removing pulseaudio but this causes problems for ubuntu sound and actually breaks it. I have also tried searching for a way to actually choose my sound system but it seems ubuntu itself only really support pulseaudio (no library chooser to switch to alsa, unless I'm looking in the wrong place).

I can remove and replace pulseaudio with alsa but it destroys ubuntu's gui for sound (i.e. system->pref->sound breaks) and I have to change volume via terminal which is a pain especially in a game that won't alt-tab without crashing.

I was wandering if there was either:

a. A safe way to replace pulseaudio with alsa
b. Or use terminal to switch off pulseaudio for a given amount of time so alsa can be run on my games.

I did have a way to switch off pulseaudio but when ever I use the command now I just get:

E: pid.c: Daemon already running.
E: main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.

Which is a pain again.

Thanks.

[squaregoldfish]

You can disable pulse using the instructions at this address:

http://idyllictux.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/ubuntu-904-jaunty-keeping-the-beast-pulseaudio-at-bay/ (http://idyllictux.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/ubuntu-904-jaunty-keeping-the-beast-pulseaudio-at-bay/)

Note that asoundconf is no longer present in Karmic, but it can be installed from the Jaunty repositories - see comments from the last couple of days on the same page.

Steve.

[Hugo Alvarado]

Here is what I did to remove pulse audio in Karmic:

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
sudo apt-get autoremove

sudo apt-get install alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base alsamixergui

sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common libesd-alsa0 gnome-alsamixer

restart your computer!

Notes:
-run gstreamer-properties in terminal to set defaults to alsa (the old system/preferences/sound in jaunty)
-remove gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio to get sound in totem
-gnome-alsamixer is for changing the volume, not an applet but better that nothing

Enjoy!

[nullrend]

The above procedure works. I'll just repeat it for extra points, marked up properly.

Here is what I did to remove pulse audio in Karmic:


$ sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
$ sudo apt-get install alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base alsamixergui
$ sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common libesd-alsa0 gnome-alsamixerrestart your computer!

Notes:
-run gstreamer-properties in terminal to set defaults to alsa (the old system/preferences/sound in jaunty)
This means:

$ gstreamer-properties-remove gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio to get sound in totem.
The above commands should have taken care of that, but it never hurts to be sure when talking about the hydra that is PulseAudio.
-gnome-alsamixer is for changing the volume, not an applet but better that nothing
This means you are left without a panel applet to control volume across the board, thanks to the thoughtful efforts of Canonical to shove PulseAudio down our throats. So you need to have something to control audio with:

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixerAnd something to keep gnome-alsamixer within easy reach, provided by AllTray:

$ sudo apt-get install alltrayNow, one last word of advice. Usually the best solution is to use aptitude or synaptic to do these moves, but you'll run headfirst into their dependency resolution efforts, which command them to put PulseAudio back in your system when reinstalling gnome-alsamixer. So either you use apt-get or you reconfigure aptitude/synaptic dependency resolution to work the way you want.

[taffyviking]

Thanks Nullrend for your excellent stepwise guide to purging my laptop of PulseAudio.

Since upgrading my ancient "web radio" laptop from 9.04 to 9.10 (and then doing a clean install just to make sure) I've had nothing but hassle with the sound system including choppy sound, sound being muted or set at minimum after startup, sound stopping/muting/setting to minimum while in use and awful hammering noises while adjusting the volume using the tray app. And this just using the BBC i-player; With Rhythm box it was even worse!

How has something as bad as PulseAudio been allowed out for general use? I'll certainly think twice about upgrading automatically to Loony Leopard (or whatever daft name they're going to call it) without waiting a couple of months and checking the forums carefully.

[slumbergod]

Yeah, I totally agree - PulseAudio was never anything but a headache for me. It crackled and popped all the time. The first thing I did was replace it after any new installation.

Imagine my delight to find Xubuntu 9.10 didn't have Pulse!!!!

[Zoot7]

After removing Pulseaudio, I tried recompiling the gnome applets specifying to disable pulseaudio support; while I was able to get a volume applet up on the bar, my media keys didn't work.

Recompiling them with the default configure options as I type now.

[nullrend]

After removing Pulseaudio, I tried recompiling the gnome applets specifying to disable pulseaudio support; while I was able to get a volume applet up on the bar, my media keys didn't work.

Recompiling them with the default configure options as I type now.

Let us know how that works. I just realized the volume up/down/mute keys on my keyboard no longer work after purging my system of PulseAudio. Wonder if there's a way to build a package people can install...

[nullrend]

Hmm, now you've got me wondering how Xubuntu 9.10 handles the sound subsystem. Maybe a couple of packages can be installed on Ubuntu systems to get a sound applet for the GNOME panel?

Now to be clear, I don't think PulseAudio is such a bad thing. When it works it is a thing of beauty. My problem is with Canonical's implementation of it.

[Zoot7]

Let us know how that works. I just realized the volume up/down/mute keys on my keyboard no longer work after purging my system of PulseAudio. Wonder if there's a way to build a package people can install...
I was actually able to get a volume applet on the panel, however then both my volume control keys and the rest of the media keys (play/pause etc.) no longer worked which is a bit of a deal breaker for me, so I recomplied the applets with the default options again, and installed pulse once more.
Sadly pulse is too integrated to simply remove like you could up until Karmic. :(

I'll give it another crack on that testing hard drive of mine later today.

[Zoot7]

Hmm.. I wonder would it be possible to grab the gnome-media source from the Jaunty repos and recompile that?
The different version of gnome might cause problems though... must give it a shot at some point.

[robert-e]

Has anyone had any success with removing PulseAudio and then installing OSSv4? I needed to install OSSv4 since PA does not support devices dsp, needed for some programs I use (in Fedora 10). I ask as I have a spare hard drive and would like to play with Ubuntu 9.10.
Thanks for reading.
Bob

[jf1991999]

My primary reason for removing Pulse was that it screwed the new version of Skype.

I found that the following worked.

sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio

sudo apt-get install esound

I installed ALSA and the GNOME ALSA GUI via Synaptic. The ALSA GUI is a rough way to control sound but at least everything now works.

[Zoot7]

I see Debian Unstable uses Gnome 2.28 aswell. I'm wondering if I fetched the source for Gnome Media, Gnome Applets and Gnome Settings Daemon from the Unstable repositories and compiled it under Karmic.
It's worth a shot and I'll let you all know how I get on.

[q.dinar]

i have made this in ubuntu 9.04 , now flash in firefox does not work.
see about this what i do also in http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8308523 .

[Zoot7]

i have made this in ubuntu 9.04 , now flash in firefox does not work.
see about this what i do also in http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8308523 .
Flash needs a plugin to work with Pulseaudio.

I went and built the flash plugin from source to get it up and running.

wget http://pulseaudio.vdbonline.net/flashplugin-nonfree-pulse_0.1~000.tar.gz
tar xvfz flashplugin-nonfree-pulse_0.1~000.tar.gz
cd flashplugin-nonfree-pulse-0.1~000
sudo apt-get install libpulse-dev
make
sudo make install

or instead of make install

sudo checkinstall
to build and install a .deb package.

I now can play flash along with pretty much all other audio applications.

Why this wasn't already in the repositories baffles me... :/

[coldReactive]

Flash needs a plugin to work with Pulseaudio.

I went and built the flash plugin from source to get it up and running.

wget http://pulseaudio.vdbonline.net/flashplugin-nonfree-pulse_0.1~000.tar.gz
tar xvfz flashplugin-nonfree-pulse_0.1~000.tar.gz
cd flashplugin-nonfree-pulse-0.1~000
sudo apt-get install libpulse-dev
make
sudo make install

or instead of make install

sudo checkinstall
to build and install a .deb package.

I now can play flash along with pretty much all other audio applications.

Why this wasn't already in the repositories baffles me... :/

Because pulseaudio works for flash nicely on my end.

esound can't be ran in karmic due to the sheer volume of integration that pulseaudio emits.

[Zoot7]

Because pulseaudio works for flash nicely on my end.
Out of interest were you able to get sound from flash along with other applications using Pulse at the same time without ever going near plugins for it?

[coldReactive]

Out of interest were you able to get sound from flash along with other applications using Pulse at the same time without ever going near plugins for it?

I use flashplugin-nonfree (i386) on my amd64 arch ubuntu.

I can hear flash sounds while running totem music on the default install of pulseaudio.

[Zoot7]

Strange. I've had the exact same problem with flash in each of the 3 machines I've installed Karmic on, and using that flashplugin-nonfree-pulse package sorted it in each case.

[Elviswind]

Thanks for this thread . . . the advice in post #4 to remove Pulseaudio was perfect, but since I'm running Xubuntu 9.10, I did not need to run the last few commands to install another mixer. I should have known from the start after upgrading that something wasn't right since I suddenly had two mixers in my bar.

Not only did removing Pulseaudio fix my crappy sound that showed up after upgrading to 9.10, but I was also able to remove the workaround in /etc/rc.local and I no longer have problems with the sound starting muted.

\\:D/

[q.dinar]

no, flash has not worked when pa is uninstalled. now i try to install flashplugin-nonfree, if it will not work will try additionally to install flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound . now was installed adobe-flashplugin.

[q.dinar]

installing flashplugin-nonfree and flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound instead of adobe-flashplugin has not helped.

[Sammaye]

This is a recurring problem in Wine with pulseaudio, although just as a weird guess I kinda selected all sound drivers in winecfg and now my sound works good :).

[Zoot7]

installing flashplugin-nonfree and flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound instead of adobe-flashplugin has not helped.
You might want to give the flashplugin-nonfree-pulse I mentioned earlier in this thread a shot. Installing that is what sorted the flash problems with pulseaudio for me.

[coldReactive]

You might want to give the flashplugin-nonfree-pulse I mentioned earlier in this thread a shot. Installing that is what sorted the flash problems with pulseaudio for me.

You can't, there is no such package:


Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package flashplugin-nonfree-pulse

[Zoot7]

It doesn't exist in the repos. I had to download it and compile it from source.

[coldReactive]

compile it from source.

Red Flag.

[Zoot7]

Red Flag.
Red flag indeed. :(
It'd be nice if the Ubuntu devs could pick something that's stable and problem free and run with it.

[coldReactive]

Red flag indeed. :(
It'd be nice if the Ubuntu devs could pick something that's stable and problem free and run with it.

It's too bad that ALL THREE flash players aren't stable.

[Zoot7]

It's too bad that ALL THREE flash players aren't stable.
I gather the flash player package in the repos is broken (at least that was the word in the pipeline).
I've installed the .deb off adobe's website, and coupled with the flash extension for pulseaudio, flash is fine on my machines.

[coldReactive]

I gather the flash player package in the repos is broken (at least that was the word in the pipeline).
I've installed the .deb off adobe's website, and coupled with the flash extension for pulseaudio, flash is fine on my machines.

But I'd rather not compile, so I'm stuck with instability :(

[sandyd]

Thanks Nullrend for your excellent stepwise guide to purging my laptop of PulseAudio.

Since upgrading my ancient "web radio" laptop from 9.04 to 9.10 (and then doing a clean install just to make sure) I've had nothing but hassle with the sound system including choppy sound, sound being muted or set at minimum after startup, sound stopping/muting/setting to minimum while in use and awful hammering noises while adjusting the volume using the tray app. And this just using the BBC i-player; With Rhythm box it was even worse!

How has something as bad as PulseAudio been allowed out for general use? I'll certainly think twice about upgrading automatically to Loony Leopard (or whatever daft name they're going to call it) without waiting a couple of months and checking the forums carefully.
its called Lucid Lynx and where did i find that?
its right above this thread. ;)

[Zoot7]

But I'd rather not compile, so I'm stuck with instability :(
Compiling isn't too bad really. I know it's not something a reasonable end user should have to do, and it's a classic example of why Linux isn't really ready for the desktop.

A great package is checkinstall, which will build the compiled code into a .deb package so it's simple remove if need be.

[coldReactive]

Compiling isn't too bad really. I know it's not something a reasonable end user should have to do, and it's a classic example of why Linux isn't really ready for the desktop.

A great package is checkinstall, which will build the compiled code into a .deb package so it's simple remove if need be.

giftwrap will do the same.

[Natovr]

This helped me :D But what I did for volume control is to go to System > Preferences > Keyboard shortcuts, and then made a Volume Up shortcut (add button), with the command line "amixer -q set PCM 3+" (you can also use Master instead of PCM.. I used PCM because it went all the way down to mute, unlike Master). Then make another shortcut, Volume Down, with the command "amixer -q set PCM 3-"... again, you can change to Master if you want.

edit: You can use any keys you like, but I used XF86AudioRaiseVolume and XF86AudioLowerVolume which is basically "Fn+Left" and "Fn+Right" on my laptop.

It doesn't show the volume in the gnome panel, but you can still see it by running "amixer". It should change under PCM (or Master, whichever).
edit: There is probably a non-GUI way to do this.

[gmt2027]

I was also having trouble with pulseaudio after upgrading to Karmic. Erratic output, an endless stream of "suppressed events" in the system log and strange sounds from the speakers - but the final irritation was simultaneous output over both internal speakers and headphones after a random reboot that I couldn't fix.

I've removed pulseaudio and am using kmix as the panel applet now. It's KDE and it works. I'm beginning to reconsider going back to kubuntu.

[q.dinar]

You might want to give the flashplugin-nonfree-pulse I mentioned earlier in this thread a shot. Installing that is what sorted the flash problems with pulseaudio for me.i have not problem with flash and pulse! it worked fine! ices2 used much processor with pulse, for that i uninstalled pulse and now when without pulse flash does not work.
please help me to configure pulse so that it does not touch one of 2 soundcards. if i can do so then i will use pulse because with pulse {flash in firefox}'s sound works.
this is in 9.04! they say in 9.10 it is easy to switch off one of soundcards from being loaded by pulse.

[Sammaye]

It isn't easy on 9.10 it is in fact almost impossible since the only real "supported" audio is pulseaudio now.

9.04, for me, used alsa...

[Zoot7]

A bit of fiddling I did, and I now notice I can add an applet to the panel regardless of whether pulseaudio is there or not.

I'm still missing the gnome-volume-control though, which is part of the
What I did was recompile the gnome-applets package from the repos, and add in the applet.

I really don't recommend anyone try this, you'd be better off to just stick with pulse, but if you really want that applet back after removing pulseaudio, this is one such way.

If anyone's interested here's what I did:

sudo apt-get install devscripts build-essential fakeroot
sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-applets
That'll pull in all the dependencies to build everything.


cd ~
mkdir build && cd build
apt-get source gnome-applets
cd gnome-applets-2.28.0

Then you're going to have to specify the configure options to enable the mixer applet. To do that

gedit debian/rules
Look for the line that starts with DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS +=
and add in --enable-mixer-applet on the same line, save and close.

Then run this to build the packages.

dpkg-buildpackage -b -j4 -D
once that's finished:

cd ..
To see the end result; there should now be 3 .debs in that directory, namely:

gnome-applets_2.28.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
gnome-applets-data_2.28.0-0ubuntu2_all.deb
gnome-applets-dbg_2.28.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb


Lastly install them with:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Restart gdm (log off and log on again, reboot or run sudo service gdm restart), and right click on the panel and you should now be able to add a volume control applet regarless of whether pulseaudio is installed or not.

Apt is now going to want to update those 3 packages to their original version, so to hold and tell it to leave them as is do:

sudo -s
echo 'gnome-applets hold' | dpkg --set-selections
echo 'gnome-applets-data hold' | dpkg --set-selections
echo 'gnome-applets-dbg hold' | dpkg --set-selections

Now you should be able to carry on as normal.

[Zoot7]

this is in 9.04! they say in 9.10 it is easy to switch off one of soundcards from being loaded by pulse.
If you're using 9.04 you can remove pulse, but if you want to control it do:

sudo apt-get install libasound2-plugins padevchooser libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio
That'll pull in all the necessary PulseAudio libraries and configuration utilities.

Then you should be able to choose the devices pulse uses in the "Pulseaudio Device Chooser" in the Sound & Video menu.
This works in Karmic, I'm not sure how you'll fair in Jaunty. I used to just remove Pulseaudio straight away.

[JC Cheloven]

Hi, I come a bit late to the party !!

First, thanks to #3 & 4. It worked in UbuntuStudio 9.10 Karmic in a spare machine. For me, this implies that:

- I'll be able to setup a friend's pc with UbuntuStudio. The problem was that Pulseaudio broke the sound in musescore, which he (and me for that matter) needs.

- I'll hopefully be able to use ubuntu myself in my main music-production machine, instead of 64studio beta 3. I had to switch because pulse broke compatibility with my (excellent and fully alsa supported) pci soundcard. A hamerfall dsp 9632.

Usually people will have pulse problems similar to the first one of mine. that is, apps problems. I solved these in a less drastic way. If anyone is interested:

Create the file ~/.pulse/client.conf and stuff it with a single line:
autospawn = no After a reboot you can run
pulseaudio -k anytime you'll do something pulse-problematic, as running musescore is. If you will do something pulse-dependent (ie, ubuntu-pulse-configured), as playing something in totem or streaming a/v in firefox, you can run pulseaudio -D before, to bring again pulse alive.

While this solved mostly the software problems, wasn't so lucky with my hardware problem. Also it is something that I wouldn't ask to do to a non tech musician friend. Facing the multi window Jack is more than enough for him ;-)

Anyway, I'll try the method of this thread and report any successes related to my hardware problem.
Greetings

[Wilbefast]

#3/4 worked really well for me, fixed a lot of problem I'd been having. Trouble of course is that I can't re-adjust the sound with the buttons any-more (as forewarned) and this is somewhat annoying since it's a laptop so I can't just turn down the speakers.

So yeah, here's hoping somebody clever will fix it :D

[Zoot7]

- I'll be able to setup a friend's pc with UbuntuStudio. The problem was that Pulseaudio broke the sound in musescore, which he (and me for that matter) needs.
One useful command for apps that don't like Pulseaudio like Musescore is pasuspender. The best thing to do is change your launchers to include "pasuspender" before the command to launch the app.
That way Pulse is suspended once you start that app and is brought back to life once you quit it.
I use it for Tuxguitar, Wine apps and Musescore at the moment.

[Wilbefast]

One useful command for apps that don't like Pulseaudio like Musescore is pasuspender. The best thing to do is change your launchers to include "pasuspender" before the command to launch the app.
That way Pulse is suspended once you start that app and is brought back to life once you quit it.
I use it for Tuxguitar, Wine apps and Musescore at the moment.

handy... so I guess that means we'll have to reinstall it all again then...

edit: very handy in fact - I couldn't use skype without pulseaudio but now I can use certain apps that like alsa :)

edit 2: I may have spoken too soon... "Spring" (the game) for example, which doesn't play sound properly over pulseaudio, will not play any sound at all if pasuspender is used...

[tommcd]

The above procedure works. I'll just repeat it for extra points, marked up properly.
Here is what I did to remove pulse audio in Karmic: .... (post #4 in this thread)

Very good tutorial, it worked for me!
The problem I have with pulse audio is that it is a huge resource hog. On my socket 939 AMD Athlon64 3200+ CPU pulse was using 10-20+ % of my CPU. Alsa uses minimal CPU by comparison.
I am guessing that pulse will replace alsa at some point in the future, just as alsa has replaced oss. At present, pulse just uses more system resources without adding any advantages over alsa that I can see or hear. I will stick with alsa until I can demonstrate a clear advantage for using pulse.

[Zoot7]

edit: very handy in fact - I couldn't use skype without pulseaudio but now I can use certain apps that like alsa :)
Yeah the new version of skype doesn't work properly without pulseaudio sadly.
And ditto having problems with Games. :(

[mgol]

Yeah the new version of skype doesn't work properly without pulseaudio sadly.
And ditto having problems with Games. :(
I don't think that's true, why do You say so? Other sound engines are available once You remove PA.

[Zoot7]

I don't think that's true, why do You say so? Other sound engines are available once You remove PA.
I could never get the new version of Skype to play nice with my USB mic minus Pulseaudio.
Of course Skype 2.0 worked away as happy as Larry with Alsa only.

[Wilbefast]

I don't think that's true, why do You say so? Other sound engines are available once You remove PA.

Well, I can hear but can't be heard - there's this weird thing that happens: I try to test the mike on sound-recorder when Skype is running and it doesn't work, then I close Skype and it does: somehow running Skype stops the microphone from working across the board.

Another annoying thing in 9.10 is with sound-recorder actually: constantly asking you if you want to save your file :-S

[RoestVrijStaal]

Today I completely nuked my Ubuntu installation, thanks to libpulse0.
Somehow gnome-panels, gnome-session and other components of gnome depends on this lib of pulseaudio. I really wonder why. I uninstalled libpulse0, by accident with the gnome-components... no login for me anymore.

I'm thinking about to switch to the pulseaudio-free Xubuntu:popcorn:

[seeker5528]

Today I completely nuked my Ubuntu installation, thanks to libpulse0.
Somehow gnome-panels, gnome-session and other components of gnome depends on this lib of pulseaudio. I really wonder why. I uninstalled libpulse0, by accident with the gnome-components... no login for me anymore.

I'm thinking about to switch to the pulseaudio-free Xubuntu:popcorn:

Well, as it looks like you found out, libpulse0 is not something you want to get rid of if you are using Gnome stuff, and I think some non-Gnome stuff will pull this in as well.

If you don't want pulseaudio mucking things up, turning off the option to treat recommends as dependencies and removing pulseaudio and pulseaudio-* packages is enough.

If you are currently stuck at the command line:

http://blogs.koolwal.net/2009/01/07/howto-tell-apt-get-not-to-install-recommends-packages-in-debian-linux/

Normally when I am updating if I run into updates that want to pull in pulseaudio, I install everything but those things, then in Synpatic turn off the option to treat recommends as dependencies, install the things that want to pull in pulse audio, then turn the option to treat recommends as dependencies back on until the next time.

Later, Seeker

[Zoot7]

AFAIK Debian is avoiding Pulseaudio until the issues are avoided. So one option would be to grab the source for Gnome-Applets and Gnome-Media from the Debian Unstable repos (which too uses Gnome 2.28.1) and re-compile it under Ubuntu.

apt-get source gnome-applets && sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-applets
and then

dpkg-buildpackage -b -j4 -D
to compile and build the package.

[Wilbefast]

What about Kubuntu? Does KDE use pulseaudio? I'm not very familiar with Xfce but I'm think to changing to *something* else - 9.10 has been giving me all sorts of problems, especially with Flash.

edit: removing Pulseaudio won't fix the problem with Skype because the problem with Skype IS the removal of Pulseaudio - perhaps an older version of Skype?

[Zoot7]

Kubuntu or Xubuntu don't use Pulseaudio, I think they're just using no-frills ALSA.

Skype 2.0 uses Alsa and works perfectly without Pulseaudio installed, the trouble if finding the installation package. They've taken it off their website to my knowledge.

[yakshbuntu]

Yeah, I totally agree - PulseAudio was never anything but a headache for me. It crackled and popped all the time. The first thing I did was replace it after any new installation.

Imagine my delight to find Xubuntu 9.10 didn't have Pulse!!!!
Thanks

[robert-e]

Thanks to all that posted suggestions wrt removing PA in 9.10. I will try this, and then if successful, will install OSSv4. I have used OSSv4 in place of PulseAudio/Alsa in Fedora and it worked quite well. However, Fedora is moving towards making it exceedingly difficult to do such tweaks, and I am exploring other distros. I shall also look into Mint 8, to see if it is also is less arbitrary in allowing the user to easily manage the OS.
Regards,
Bob

[mgol]

edit: removing Pulseaudio won't fix the problem with Skype because the problem with Skype IS the removal of Pulseaudio - perhaps an older version of Skype?
I don't get it - I use Skype 2.1 without PA and it works. What is the problem?

[Wilbefast]

The problem is:


I can hear but can't be heard - there's this weird thing that happens: I try to test the mike on sound-recorder when Skype is running and it doesn't work, then I close Skype and it does: somehow running Skype stops the microphone from working across the board.

[mgol]

@Wilbefast - I run a test call (to echo123) and I heard myself.

[JC Cheloven]

One useful command for apps that don't like Pulseaudio like Musescore is pasuspender. The best thing to do is change your launchers to include "pasuspender" before the command to launch the app.
That way Pulse is suspended once you start that app and is brought back to life once you quit it.
I use it for Tuxguitar, Wine apps and Musescore at the moment.

As a matter of fact, I made the menu icons to execute simple scripts, with commands similar to these (example for musescore):

pulseaudio -k
mscore
pulseaudio -D
It worked nicely as well. Thanks anyway ;-)

Related to my post #42, I can confirm that the removal of pulseaudio following the instructions in this thread, has been succesful: my Hammerfall DSP 9632 which wasn't recognized due to pulse-alsa issues (didn't even appeared in aplay -l), works flawlessly now.

For those of you who use skype. Perhaps the community, as a bunch of new members come in, is forgeting (in average) the risks of proprietary software, and thus the ideas underpinning this whole thing called "free software". I don't use e-phones anyway, but I'd consider free-libre replacements. Be adviced about some possible issues with skype (some in spanish or frech, sorry):

- Skype accused (http://www.abc.es/20081003/internacional-internacional/empresa-telecomunicaciones-skype-aucusada-200810030046.html) of allowing chinesse authorities to spy the users.
- Occidentals are not safe either: It seems that a function to extract (http://blog.philpep.org/post/Skype-:-un-logiciel-qui-vous-veut-du-bien) your favourites/bookmarks and your downloads could be built-in.
- When turned off, it seems that it could be still "alive" (doing what?). The suspects of a backdoor (http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Speculation-over-back-door-in-Skype-736607.html) have been around for long.

--> Software is not only a set of tools. It manages your whole info (personal docs, habbits, friends lists ...) You've the right of knowing what exactly your software does with that. Formats are not only dumb containers. They are the key to access the info inside. You should have the right to access the information (be in flash or ??movie format, or whatever). Hence the need to fight for open formats, not closed protocols.

Just a reminder. Well... what about Ekiga ?
___________________________

[robert-e]

J C,
I am pretty green at this PA stuff, but I seem to recall that executing:

pulseaudio -k is largely ineffective, as it very quickly restarts again. I remember something about editing a conf file containing something about "autospawn blah blah"???

On a more general note; it seems to me that more and more services are being moved into the kernel, and are becoming more and more difficult to erradicate; including sound, video, and wireless. Modular linux is becoming less so.
Regards,
Bob

[Zoot7]

Just a reminder. Well... what about Ekiga ?
I've been wondering about Ekiga for a while now, but I've never got around to getting anyone else to try it out with me yet.
But If I can get an open source alternative to skype I'm all for it! :)

[Wilbefast]

Just a reminder. Well... what about Ekiga ?

My mum's a bit of a noob when it comes to computers, which is why we've stuck to Skype so far (bit of background: I'm doing uni in France, she lives in Australia). I agree with everything you said though, perhaps it's time she learned ;)

[PC_load_letter]

The above procedure works. I'll just repeat it for extra points, marked up properly.

Here is what I did to remove pulse audio in Karmic:


$ sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
$ sudo apt-get install alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base alsamixergui
$ sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common libesd-alsa0 gnome-alsamixerrestart your computer!



I just installed Karmic 64bit on my desktop with M-Audio 2496 sound card and guess what? No sound at all!
I followed the the steps in the quote above and restarted, and was greeted by Ubuntu's login sound:guitar:=D>=D>=D>.

Regarding the volume control, which disappeared from the panel, I replaced it with envy24 control applet which is part of the alsa-utils package that I installed from the repos.

Many many thanks to all you guys.

Best.

[guillemsola]

COOL!!! :popcorn:

Useful post

After remove pulseaudio I can hear music again! With pulse rhytmbox stopped, spotify crashed and freezed... even MOCP blocked!!!

Unfortunately the volume icon is not the same, Is there any applet that allow mouse wheel to change headphones level in alsa?

[VertexPusher]

Here is what I did to remove pulse audio in Karmic:

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
sudo apt-get autoremove

sudo apt-get install alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base alsamixergui

sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common libesd-alsa0 gnome-alsamixer

restart your computer!

Notes:
-run gstreamer-properties in terminal to set defaults to alsa (the old system/preferences/sound in jaunty)
-remove gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio to get sound in totem
-gnome-alsamixer is for changing the volume, not an applet but better that nothing

Enjoy!
Some suggestions:

Purging pulseaudio will remove ubuntu-desktop as well. That's not a problem per se, but if you run autoremove afterwards, it may remove the entire desktop (which has been installed as a dependency of ubuntu-desktop). The outcome depends on the state of the other packages, so you should never recommend autoremove and expect the same results for everyone.

Before removing shared dependencies, you should make sure that the alternatives are installed. For example, Totem and Rhythmbox depend on gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio or gstreamer0.10-alsa. If you remove the former before installing the latter, both applications will be gone. If you reverse the order, they will stay.

Installing esound and related packages in Karmic is pointless. No application uses them, and Gnome will not even start up esd any more. Those packages will just sit on your disk and do nothing.

Anyone using VLC may want to remove vlc-plugin-pulse as well.

[JC Cheloven]

Thanks Vertex for your pointings.


J C,
I am pretty green at this PA stuff, but I seem to recall that executing:
pulseaudio -k is largely ineffective, as it very quickly restarts again. (...)
Bob

Hey, that's why one has to do that I suggested in #42. To sum up again:

1) Do create (once in life) the file ~/.pulse/client.conf contaning the single line:
autospawn = no
2) When you want pulse not bothering, run ~$ pulseaudio -k
3) When you want pulse around again, run ~$ pulseaudio -D

It's easy, no root privileges are required, and works.

[JC Cheloven]

(...)Regarding the volume control, which disappeared from the panel, I replaced it with envy24 control applet which is part of the alsa-utils package that I installed from the repos. (...)


Just for other people seeing that: the envy24 bit only applies if you actually have a ICE1712 card in your system.

[Wilbefast]

I installed Kubuntu-desktop and now I can use the hardware volume control again :D

Also flash seems to be working as well ;)

This is fantastic, think I'm going to start again with a fresh Kubuntu!

[Zoot7]

Yeah neither Kubuntu or Xubuntu have Pulse.

[PC_load_letter]

Just for other people seeing that: the envy24 bit only applies if you actually have a ICE1712 card in your system.


You're right, but then anyone can still use Gnome-alsamixer (it's in the repos), right?

[PC_load_letter]

A follow-up to my earlier post. Although I was successful in removing PA and everything is fine, I'm having trouble with "Sound" preferences. I select it from the menu, and I get a "Waiting for sound system to respond" then it disappears. The "system testing" utility (from the Administration menu) recognizes my card and correctly plays the beep sound.

My question is: Is there a way to recover the sound preference menu? Or at least be able to change the preferences from a file?

Thanks.

[Wilbefast]

I've downgraded to 9.04 (but kept the 64 bit) - after 2 weeks of absolute hell I've got a working computer again :KS

Don't know what 9.04 uses but whatever it is it works. Phew!

[Zoot7]

You're right, but then anyone can still use Gnome-alsamixer (it's in the repos), right?
There's no reason why you wouldn't be able to.

[Zoot7]

My question is: Is there a way to recover the sound preference menu? Or at least be able to change the preferences from a file?
Not sure about configuring from a file, but there's no way to get the menu's back without pulseaudio.

[tommcd]

... I'm having trouble with "Sound" preferences. I select it from the menu, and I get a "Waiting for sound system to respond" then it disappears. The "system testing" utility (from the Administration menu) recognizes my card and correctly plays the beep sound.

I had the same thing happen to me. I don't miss the sound-preferences though. I just set MPlayer to use alsa and forget about it.
I pretty much use MPLayer for all audio and video. I run MPlayer right off the terminal. No need even for a GUI.

[CylnZ]

What is Ubuntu's commitment to Pulse? It seems to cause more problems than benefits. Ever since I installed Ubuntu 8.10 I'v e had a miserable time with Intel HDA. Made the system mostly worthless, choppy video (due to PA high cpu usage spikes) off/on audio whenever it bloody well felt like it, on boot muted sound until I unmuted it all it shell alsamixer, etc. I followed your guide here to just dump it, and YIPPEE! I finally have a decent multimedia system that works all the time, even on startup.

Thanks so much :)

I reiterate, what's the passion for pulse if it drives new users back to windows?

[Roger Allott]

The above procedure works. I'll just repeat it for extra points, marked up properly.

Here is what I did to remove pulse audio in Karmic:


$ sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
$ sudo apt-get install alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base alsamixergui
$ sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common libesd-alsa0 gnome-alsamixerrestart your computer!

Notes:
-run gstreamer-properties in terminal to set defaults to alsa (the old system/preferences/sound in jaunty)
This means:

$ gstreamer-properties-remove gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio to get sound in totem.
The above commands should have taken care of that, but it never hurts to be sure when talking about the hydra that is PulseAudio.
-gnome-alsamixer is for changing the volume, not an applet but better that nothing
This means you are left without a panel applet to control volume across the board, thanks to the thoughtful efforts of Canonical to shove PulseAudio down our throats. So you need to have something to control audio with:

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixerAnd something to keep gnome-alsamixer within easy reach, provided by AllTray:

$ sudo apt-get install alltrayNow, one last word of advice. Usually the best solution is to use aptitude or synaptic to do these moves, but you'll run headfirst into their dependency resolution efforts, which command them to put PulseAudio back in your system when reinstalling gnome-alsamixer. So either you use apt-get or you reconfigure aptitude/synaptic dependency resolution to work the way you want.

I've just tried doing this but aborted when the first command produced:

$ sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
[sudo] password for stuart:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED
gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio* libcanberra-pulse* padevchooser* paprefs*
pulseaudio* pulseaudio-esound-compat* pulseaudio-module-bluetooth*
pulseaudio-module-gconf* pulseaudio-module-udev* pulseaudio-module-x11*
pulseaudio-module-zeroconf* ubuntu-desktop*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 12 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 6,443kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

I can live with all of those packages being removed, but removing ubuntu-desktop??????

[tommcd]

What is Ubuntu's commitment to Pulse? It seems to cause more problems than benefits....
I reiterate, what's the passion for pulse if it drives new users back to windows?
From what I have read, pulse audio seems to be the future sound standard in linux. See this article:
http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/drivers/8100-why-you-should-care-about-pulseaudio-and-how-to-start-doing-it
Fedora is using pulse audio also:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Interviews/LennartPoettering

PulseAudio is a next generation sound server for Linux, making all sorts of "ear-candy" possible ...
To my ears, pulse audio does not sound any better than alsa.
From a quick google search, it seems that Fedora users are having just as many problems with pulse audio as us Ubuntu users.

And for Ubuntu specifically:
http://ossguy.com/?p=347
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/CleanupAudioJumble
I suspect that all the difficulties with pulse audio will be fixed as it matures. This will have to wait for future Ubuntu releases unfortunately. In the meantime will will just have to work around it.
The biggest problem I have with pulse audio is that it is a resource hog compared to alsa. I really hope this is fixed in future releases.

[Zoot7]

From what I have read, pulse audio seems to be the future sound standard in linux. See this article:
http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/drivers/8100-why-you-should-care-about-pulseaudio-and-how-to-start-doing-it
Fedora is using pulse audio also:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Interviews/LennartPoettering

To my ears, pulse audio does not sound any better than alsa.
From a quick google search, it seems that Fedora users are having just as many problems with pulse audio as us Ubuntu users.

And for Ubuntu specifically:
http://ossguy.com/?p=347
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/CleanupAudioJumble
I suspect that all the difficulties with pulse audio will be fixed as it matures. This will have to wait for future Ubuntu releases unfortunately. In the meantime will will just have to work around it.
The biggest problem I have with pulse audio is that it is a resource hog compared to alsa. I really hope this is fixed in future releases.
The main feature I'm interested in that Pulse touts is a system wide equalizer.

[seeker5528]

From what I have read, pulse audio seems to be the future sound standard in linux. See this article:
http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/drivers/8100-why-you-should-care-about-pulseaudio-and-how-to-start-doing-it
Fedora is using pulse audio also:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Interviews/LennartPoettering

To my mind, you have to question an article that claims:


And that's the point: some apps are written to use the userspace ALSA API, some aRts, some JACK, some handle the audio internally. If you can reroute all of the audio through one handler, you get more control, fewer conflicts, and fewer surprises.

Pulseaudio does give you some options you don't have if you don't use it, but overall you have less control with it than without.

Confusion doesn't go away either. Apps will still be programed to use gstreamer, OpenAL, Phonon, JACK, etc... each with their own potential set of issues as it relates to Pulseaudio.

In particular with the insistence on the developer side that Pulseaudio needs exlusive access the the audio hardware, just when were getting rid of Artsd and things were looking up.

Does it seem less confusing that with Pulseaudio the list applications that you might not be able to have sound in at the same time doesn't seem any shorter, just different?

Or the situations when audio isn't working out of the box doesn't seem any less, just different?

Or that times that things work fine using alsa directly but are screwy with Pulseaudio still seem way too common but it gets used as the default anyway with Gnome?

Is it less confusing when you pay extra for more capable hardware with more options, and those extra sliders/controls are shown by the alsa mixers but with only pulseaudio stuff, your hardware control is just as limited as with the more basic hardware?

And if, for example, you record from line 1 and need to mute the output from line 1 in one applications so it doesn't create a feedback loop and unmute it in another so you can hear what is going on, does Pulseaudio provide the necessary control?

Later, Seeker

[sieve]

I was able to successfully remove Pulseaudio using the procedures listed by nullrend in post #4. However, after doing so, I could not get the system to recognize my Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Notebook external soundcardcard. Which was odd, because supposedly the X-Fi driver is part of Alsa in 9.10/Karmic.

Maybe it is possible to get the system to recognize the X-Fi, but I don't know enough about it to know how. If anyone else does, I'd appreciate their input.

[Zoot7]

You could give upgrading to Alsa 1.0.21 a shot, the stable, tried and tested X-Fi driver is included in that. There's a nice upgrade script posted here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6589810

[sieve]

You could give upgrading to Alsa 1.0.21 a shot, the stable, tried and tested X-Fi driver is included in that. There's a nice upgrade script posted here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6589810

I should recheck, but I just did a fresh install of Karmic the other day and updated Alsa and I think I already have the most current version.

[Zoot7]

I should recheck, but I just did a fresh install of Karmic the other day and updated Alsa and I think I already have the most current version.
Well yeah if you updated Alsa to the latest version as you say, then you're running 1.0.21.
Forgot to suggest this to you:
Install the Gnome-Alsamixer and investigate if there's a channel muted by default.

sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer

or just use

alsamixer
from the command line.

People have been reporting their Volume being muted in Karmic by default.

[sieve]

Forgot to suggest this to you:
Install the Gnome-Alsamixer and investigate if there's a channel muted by default.

People have been reporting their Volume being muted in Karmic by default.

There were channels muted, but they were for microphones and other inputs. I unmuted them all, but still no luck.

I wish there was some way in Alsa to toggle between sound cards like in Pulseaudio. Actually, it's surprising that the external soundcard doesn't just automatically override and take precedence to the internal card.

[Sammaye]

I found the command:- padsp to be very useful. Run this on a shortcut (at the beginning of the command) and it will disable Pulse from running on that App. Works perfect for Wine.

[sieve]

I wish there was some way in Alsa to toggle between sound cards like in Pulseaudio. Actually, it's surprising that the external soundcard doesn't just automatically override and take precedence to the internal card.

I was able to solve the problem, as discussed in this post:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8501268&postcount=24

[sieve]

I found the command:- padsp to be very useful. Run this on a shortcut (at the beginning of the command) and it will disable Pulse from running on that App. Works perfect for Wine.

That sounds useful, as I do use Wine for various applications.
Thanks!

[Zoot7]

I was able to solve the problem, as discussed in this post:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8501268&postcount=24
What that does is disable the power saving features that automatically turn on and off the Audio chip thus producing snaps or crackles at times.

[sieve]

Zoot7, did you mean what Sammaye posted above?


I found the command:- padsp to be very useful. Run this on a shortcut (at the beginning of the command) and it will disable Pulse from running on that App. Works perfect for Wine.

For me, the problem was more than the snap crackle and pop. The sound quality itself was bad. The high frequencies sounded tinny and midranges sounded echoey and slightly garbled.

[Zoot7]

Opps, my bad.
I'd the same problem with crackles upon startup and startup alone thanks to that power saving feature.

[User3k]

yeah, i totally agree - pulseaudio was never anything but a headache for me. It crackled and popped all the time. The first thing i did was replace it after any new installation.

Imagine my delight to find xubuntu 9.10 didn't have pulse!!!!

+1

[GodLikeCreature]

Hey,

I am using Ubuntu Studio 9.04, which by default comes with network manager applet disabled. I would like to keep it that way, so here´s my question:

Can I remove pulse audio without having to install anything else? As far as I know, Ubuntu Studio already has the ALSA packages on board?

Thanks

[garyedwardjohnston]

Very nice...if fixed my problems in Karmic

[Tulth]

I constantly have sound problems as well in Karmic_amd64 9.10. I wish someone would just bury pulseaudio once and for all. It simply does not work.

[Zoot7]

Can I remove pulse audio without having to install anything else? As far as I know, Ubuntu Studio already has the ALSA packages on board?
If you're using Jaunty you should be able to.


I constantly have sound problems as well in Karmic_amd64 9.10. I wish someone would just bury pulseaudio once and for all. It simply does not work.
Sadly Pulseaudio is here to stay, if you wanted something Ubuntu-like that does not use Pulseaudio, then just regular Debian is a good candidate.

[User-007]

Hi all,

Thanks for your guide.

I followed that and just got ALSA working for system sounds and various programs. My problem is Totem - I got no sound when trying to open anything with that. I have removed gstreamer0.10-pulse and installed gstreamer0.10-alsa, set ALSA for a default in gstreamer-properties etc etc. Any suggestions? Totem would be very handy for watching DVD's and for a browser plugin.

I'm using Karmic.

Thanks in advance
User JB

[woodmaster]

thanks very much...works great!!!

[Alex_W]

Hi all,

Great guide, thank you!

I understand our troubles with PulseAudio are slightly different from case to case... so, here is mine:

HW: Laptop HP Pavillion DV42** series, Intel ICH6-type card onboard.

On Jaunty, sound worked out-of-the-box, no tinkering required.

With Karmic, I had several issues:
crackling/stuttering sound on login (apps worked more-less tolerably);

inability to store volume settings: after PA restart (logout-login, for example), the volume levels would return to some pre-specified (somewhere... I couldn't find where) levels, including 100% on the headphones channel (the most annoying thing).

What I have tried before removing PA (obviously, all this didn't work for me):

updating the system as outlined in the "Comprehensive MultiMedia Guide" on this forum;

installing "the rest of" PA (like pavchooser, etc.)

upgrading ALSA to 1.0.21

numerous edits to config files (changing "merge" to "ignore", etc.)

Instructions in this thread worked perfectly well.
What works:

the sound (system; audio via Rhythmbox, MPlayer, VLC; DVD/video via VLC, GXine, Movie Player, flash/YouTube).

What stopped working:

volume control via mediabuttons (only volume-up, down, and mute were lost)
Workaround (that did the trick for me): in the System/Preferences/Keyboard Shortcuts, I had to create new associations for Vol Up, Down, Mute with amixer command, like this:


amixer -c 0 set Master 3dB+
amixer -c 0 set Master 3dB-
amixer -c 0 set Master 0%
volume applet -- not a huge deal for now ;)

Cheers!

[brocktice]

The instructions here worked great for me on Karmic x86_64, on a Mac Pro. Thanks everyone, particularly for the pointer on the volume buttons.

[voxman69]

Thank you so much for this! I applied this to Mint 8 and the only thing out of the ordinary that happened was that Gnome-Do was removed, but I just re-installed it and now everything is fine.

I followed the guide on making new keyboard shortcuts for volume up/down which was the way I changed volume earlier anyhow.

Spotify is now smoothly playing music and I also have more free memory by some 7-8 percent according to Sysinfo.

[The-NightPhoenix]

I made a script to control alsa for the media keys and to provide notifications.

i could't do the notifications well, it became a bit crappy so i disabled it so if u please check it out and modify it

Also If any one can do something for the mute thing . to unmute and not to increase the volume up again

to use it :
Extract The File.
put it in the "/usr/bin" folder

sudo cp AlsaControler /usr/bin

give it executable permissions

sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/AlsaControler

and change the shortcut keys to :
Volum UP :

AlsaControler up
Volum Down :

AlsaControler down
Volum Mute :

AlsaControler mute

[mgol]

I made a script to control alsa for the media keys and to provide notifications.
Sorry to say this but You just wasted Your time. Such scripts have already been done:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8130297&postcount=25
They support nice Jaunty notifications and a sound icon in system tray, I'd advise to use these ones - I do and they do their job.

[The-NightPhoenix]

Thnax alot that is really good .

[head2head]

Quick question. I've got problems with pulseaudio in ubuntu (gnome) and would like to give KDE a try.

Would running 'sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop' be all that's needed to get rid of pulseaudio, or would I have to uninstall via terminal?

[jack.herbert]

Hi everybody,
Disclaimer: I know Ubuntu is free and canonical doesn't owe me anything whatsoever but oh boy, I just had one hell of an annoying afternoon.
Never had any problems with pulse audio for general use, but as soon as you want to do some more involved ardour / jack recording, the headache begins.

I ended up opening synaptic, removed pulse-audio (I only saw this thread afterwards) and installed k-mix. Probably not recommended but so far so good. At least the the line-in signal comes through. I've only lost sound playback with gnome-player, but i use vlc anyway.

What really really pissed me off is not being able to use the gnome-panel volume control for anything else BUT pulse. Who came up with THAT idea? Red flag indeed.

Anyway, cheers for this thread, very helpful.

[farna]

Maybe I should start a new thread, but my troubles are related. I'm running Mint 8 (Ubuntu 9.10 based) AMD x64 version on a PC with a quad core AMD processor and 4GB of ram -- plenty power. I bought a Turtle Beach Riviera sound card because I needed one with optical (or coaxial) digital output and reviews indicated it worked fine with Ubuntu. That was before Pulse Audio, apparently. I have every indication that the card will work with ALSA, so I followed the instructions in this thread and removed PA and installed ALSA. Still no sound!

This is an HTPC, so right now it's useless. When I try to set properties for the card (computer sees it just fine!) it tells me the card is in use, but nothing is running that would need it! Here's the output I get:

swygert@Living-Room ~ $ gstreamer-properties
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'artsdsink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'pulsesink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'glimagesink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'sdlvideosink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'v4lmjpegsrc'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'qcamsrc'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'esdmon'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'pulsesrc'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Error running pipeline 'ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture': Could not open audio device for playback. Device is being used by another application. [gstalsasink.c(685): gst_alsasink_open (): /GstPipeline /pipeline0/GstAlsaSink:alsasink3:
Device 'default' is busy]


lspci:
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Link Control
01:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G96 [GeForce 9400 GT] (rev a1)

So why no sound? Are the "unavailable plugins" the problem?

I have the computer connected to my 52" flat screen through a Sony AV receiver. Video is fine (HDMI cords), and I made sure I have the optical cable in the correct position. I'm using the computer right now, just no sound!! I need something that will send a surround sound signal to the receiver, it won't work over the HDMI cable (a disappointment, but I understand HDMI doesn't have the bandwidth).

If there is a sound card with optical and/or coaxial digital output known to work with 9.10 I will return the card and try another. Otherwise I may have to install Windows XP and just forget Linux. It's not quite as mature as I thought, and I'm getting tired of fighting with it. A friend called me "Don Quioxte" when I described some of the problems, and it's starting to fit.... (he uses an Apple).

I was looking at teh upgrade ALSA script post, thinking that might be the problem, abd I get this:

swygert@Living-Room ~ $ speaker-test -Dplughw:0,0 -c2

speaker-test 1.0.20

Playback device is plughw:0,0
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy
(continuous loop -- have to close terminal to stop)

So something is "using" the card, but I have no idea what it could be. Noting in System Monitor/Processes that could be using sound. The only apps open as I type this are Firefox, Terminal, and System Monitor. I cut the computer completely off after removing PA.

[farna]

I'm working through the forums on this! While the computer recognizes the sound card, maybe I don't have the proper drivers installed. Got that tip from http://ubuntu-ky.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205449&highlight=optical+sound. I went through the instructions and downloaded the latest ALSA files after going to the ALSA site and finding drivers. Everyting compiled fine, then I got this:

make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.31-14-generic'
utils/link-modules /home/swygert/alsa-driver-1.0.22.1

ALSA modules were successfully compiled.

if [ -L /usr/include/sound ]; then \
rm -f /usr/include/sound; \
ln -sf /home/swygert/alsa-driver-1.0.22.1/include/sound /usr/include/sound; \
else \
rm -rf /usr/include/sound; \
install -d -m 755 -g root -o root /usr/include/sound; \
for f in include/sound/*.h; do \
install -m 644 -g root -o root $f /usr/include/sound; \
done \
fi
rm: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/emu10k1.h': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/hdsp.h': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/hdspm.h': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/sfnt_info.h': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/sb16_csp.h': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/asequencer.h': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/sscape_ioctl.h': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/asound.h': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/asound_fm.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/ac97_codec.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/aci.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/ad1816a.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/ad1843.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/ak4113.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/ak4114.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/ak4117.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/ak4531_codec.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/ak4xxx-adda.h': Permission denied
install: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/asequencer.h': Permission denied
install: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/asound.h': Permission denied
install: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/asound_fm.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/asoundef.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/atmel-abdac.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/atmel-ac97c.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/control.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/core.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/cs4231-regs.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/cs46xx.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/cs46xx_dsp_scb_types.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/cs46xx_dsp_spos.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/cs46xx_dsp_task_types.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/cs8403.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/cs8427.h': Permission denied
install: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/emu10k1.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/emu10k1_synth.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/emu8000.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/emu8000_reg.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/emux_legacy.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/emux_synth.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/es1688.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/gus.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/hda_hwdep.h': Permission denied
install: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/hdsp.h': Permission denied
install: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/hdspm.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/hwdep.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/i2c.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/info.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/initval.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/jack.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/l3.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/memalloc.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/minors.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/mixer_oss.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/mpu401.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/opl3.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/opl4.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/pcm-indirect.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/pcm.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/pcm_oss.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/pcm_params.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/pt2258.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/pxa2xx-lib.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/rawmidi.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/s3c24xx_uda134x.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/sb.h': Permission denied
install: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/sb16_csp.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/seq_device.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/seq_kernel.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/seq_midi_emul.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/seq_midi_event.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/seq_oss.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/seq_oss_legacy.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/seq_virmidi.h': Permission denied
install: cannot remove `/usr/include/sound/sfnt_info.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/sh_dac_audio.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/sh_fsi.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/snd_wavefront.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/soc-dai.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/soc-dapm.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/soc-of-simple.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/soc.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/soundfont.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/tea575x-tuner.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/tea6330t.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/timer.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/tlv.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/tlv320dac33-plat.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/tpa6130a2-plat.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/trident.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/uda134x.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/uda1380.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/util_mem.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/version.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/vx_core.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/wavefront.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/wm8904.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/wm8955.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/wm8993.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/wm9081.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/wss.h': Permission denied
install: cannot create regular file `/usr/include/sound/ymfpci.h': Permission denied
make: *** [install-headers] Error 1
swygert@Living-Room ~/alsa-driver-1.0.22.1 $


Does this mean I should use sudo and manually accomplish these tasks, or am i barking up the wrong tree??

[mikewhatever]

You have to run the last command with sudo, ie sudo make install, or, in fact, whatever command you tried running in that case.

And just to chip in my 2 cents, removing PA didn't work at all. I had alsa related 'spurious response' errors in the logs, and no sound.

[farna]

Thanks for trying Mike, but that isn't the problem. If i run using sudo the script still starts erroring out after "ALSA modules were successfully compiled". It saved the part between that text and the first error as an executable script file and ran it with sudo. With that I get:
swygert@Living-Room ~ $ sudo ./sound_card_script.sh
[sudo] password for swygert:
install: cannot stat `include/sound/*.h': No such file or directory

I think I found the problem. There is a this note in the script:
config.status: WARNING: Makefile.conf.in seems to ignore the --datarootdir setting

It appears that the files which should be in /usr/include/sound are not there, they are in the Alsa upgrade directory from where the script was run (alsa-driver-1.0.22.1/include/sound.

I'm relatively new to Linux, and I can't simply copy the files to /usr/include/sound due to permissions without going to the command line, and I don't know the commands. In some ways Linux is as bad or worse than Windows. I know the intent is to keep someone from messing the system up, but it's frustrating to not be able to use the GUI tools to do what would be simple tasks. I really despise being locked out of my computer. Now I have to go back and look up how to log on as super user, log out, and log back in so I can screw it up more, since Ubuntu screwing up the sound system to begin with wasn't bad enough. Yeah, blowing off some steam... been called "Don Quioxte" for trying to make Ubuntu (Linux Mint 8x64) work instead of installling Windows, and it's beginning to feel that way. Sound should be easy to get.

[farna]

Got the sound problem fixed. i removed PulseAudio, and got the latest Alsa drivers installed. Copying the files did the trick. Still had no sound. Found a blog site describing installing the card (http://mymythtv.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_archive.html).

Alsamixer turned out to be the clincher. May have worked from the start if I'd known the settings! Of the 7 IEC958 controls, only "output" should be activated, the others muted or turned off. The others have no noticeable effect except "loop", which kills sound output.

I knew it had to be something simple I just couldn't see 9forest for trees?). I'd tried several different settings in Alsamixer, but didn't think to turn all settings off and try one at a time -- what seems to be the logical approach now! Not sure if PulseAudio needed to be removed or the latest Alsa drivers installed or not. Anyone reading this should try Alsamixer first, with ONLY "IEC958 Output" selected of the IEC958 attributes. The other settings shouldn't effect digital sound, but I'd turn all that off to begin with too, then turn on and try once you get digital sound.

[mikewhatever]

So, it looks like you went the long way just to find out about the setting that needed to be activated. As for permissions, it can be frustrating at times, but once you know how to start the file browser as root, it's easy. Use <gksudo nautilus> to do that.

[Skerit]

Removing pulseaudio worked.

However, while I do have sound in totem and such, I hear NOTHING from the start-up sounds or in programs like ultrastardx. What's wrong?

[mgol]

However, while I do have sound in totem and such, I hear NOTHING from the start-up sounds or in programs like ultrastardx.
Did You try this:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8373458&postcount=13
? If You follow all the steps and it still fails, please write again.

[Lorso]

Hello,

I've recently bought a mini 311 HP netbook and installed UNR 9.10 on it. It was all ok but audio out when playing streams and mp3s was someway confused and popping/glitching all the time.

So I decided to remove pulseaudio: I followed instuctions as reported on post #3 & 4#, but done that both Rhyhtmbox and Audacious2 gave me error messages and played no sound at all. System sounds were ok, mp3 preview from nautilus worked flawlessly.

I solved with Rhythmbox uninstalling and reinstalling it via Synaptic. For Audacious2, I modified the config file located in ~/.config/audacious/ changing the output plugin line to ALSA.so


output_plugin=/usr/lib/audacious/Output/ALSA.so (#0)

Now all works correctly, including Skype 2.10 (is it possible!?)

I have solved the issue with volume control via keyboard following post #36 instructions: I've lost OSD notifications, but I'm happy anyway.

The only pity is I have lost the speaker tray icon and I don't know how to replace it: can you help me?

Thanks a lot,

L.

[nerdy_kid]

ya know....why not just do


sudo chmod -x /usr/bin/pulseaudio
killall pulseaudio


i have this one game that doesnt like pulseaudio and i do that every time i play it, and everythings pretty ;)

[ublintu]

Hi,
I didn't read all of the post, so if someone posted it sorry.

Volume controller buttons are working for me!!

post #3 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1377667

there you will find this link: https://launchpad.net/~dtl131/+archive/ppa

Good luck.

[woodmaster]

ya know....why not just do


sudo chmod -x /usr/bin/pulseaudio
killall pulseaudio
i have this one game that doesnt like pulseaudio and i do that every time i play it, and everythings pretty ;)

For me, that would've been necessary everytime I started as pulseaudio errors were pretty much constant and ate up my Memory after a while causing freezing

[nerdy_kid]

For me, that would've been necessary everytime I started as pulseaudio errors were pretty much constant and ate up my Memory after a while causing freezing

it is consistent from boot to boot, so you would only have to do it once.

[Oceola]

I tried to leave pulse on the system and it did work for a while but the interactivity with something else had it making large files (64MB) in the /dev/shm/folder. I think it was more my hardware than the program as it's probably tailored for newer equipment, I'm running an antique here. One thing I found was you can't just delete all the packages through the repositories without losing the entire gnome setup and even the login screen. Tried this once and had to reinstall Karmic.
What I did was to remove the packages I could using Synaptic and then going inside the system and doing and search for every related "pulse" I could find including the libasound related to pulse and the canberra. I tried to remove the pulse cookie from the home/name/ folder but no go, each time it would create a new tmp file under /tmp/pulse. I tried to remove the pulse files also from the /dev/shm folder and the /etc/pulse folder to no avail until I did a complete cold reboot. The login had some isses, I think due to being tied into the system loggin sound but when I came back on the remainder of the pulse files could be removed from the various directories which kept regenerating including the /dev/shm; the /tmp/pulse; the /home/name/pulse cookie and the /etc/pulse files.
This left me without sound but an install of the following gave me control of the sound again without the replicating files large 64 MB files.
esound
alsaplayer-common (0.99.80-3.1ubuntu2)
alsaplayer-esd (0.99.80-3.1ubuntu2)
alsaplayer-gtk (0.99.80-3.1ubuntu2)
libid3tag0 (0.15.1b-10build1)
libmad0 (0.15.1b-4)
libmikmod2 (3.1.11-a-6ubuntu4)
esound (0.2.41-5)
gnome-alsamixer (0.9.7~cvs.20060916.ds.1-2)
gnome-audio (2.22.1-1)
Some of the problems I had was a consistent staccato sound like a bad repeater at boot, no playing of sound in some minor games.
I had similar sound problems with pulse in Hardy and this was handled in a similar fashion.

[ElectricJake]

Thanks to Hugo Alvarado, that was a quick and simple way of going about it.

As for the volume control I use a custom keyboard shortcut as roughly outlined here:

http://ubuntu-utah.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1308980

except I substitute PCM in place of Master (my Fast Track USB only has PCM and Mic)

[danflash]

Hold the front page - I've successfully left Pulse...
I'm unsure as to HOW exactly I did it, but I'll bring you up to speed and maybe a more advanced penguin here could put 2+2 together... (see attached pics for proof)

Tried to remove PA a while ago, unsuccessfully, using these guides. After epic failure, I put PA back on but forgot to remove some ALSA related things first (like alsa-mixer, alsa-utils, the applet(s), etc).
Then did the usual update routine through update manager, and voila - all of a sudden my volume notifier (Fn + Up/Down) was the old ALSA gem, not the one that pops up in the up right like when you change screen brightness.
SO - then I just went into synaptic, unchecked Pulseaudio (note - I didn't do a Purge with apt-get or a 'Mark for COMPLETE removal', I just did the normal standard remove) and for some reason it didnt list 'Ubuntu-desktop' as a dependency or anything.
Since then - I have my tray applet, volume notifier, Skype actually works properly, boot up sounds remain, AND flash works (see attached screen shots for some proof).

So, escape from pulse can be done

Hope that info is of some use to someone, let me know if you need more info + i'll try my best to help.
Peace

[Stosskraft]

The above procedure works. I'll just repeat it for extra points, marked up properly.

Here is what I did to remove pulse audio in Karmic:


$ sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
$ sudo apt-get install alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base alsamixergui
$ sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common libesd-alsa0 gnome-alsamixerrestart your computer!

Notes:
-run gstreamer-properties in terminal to set defaults to alsa (the old system/preferences/sound in jaunty)
This means:

$ gstreamer-properties-remove gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio to get sound in totem.
The above commands should have taken care of that, but it never hurts to be sure when talking about the hydra that is PulseAudio.
-gnome-alsamixer is for changing the volume, not an applet but better that nothing
This means you are left without a panel applet to control volume across the board, thanks to the thoughtful efforts of Canonical to shove PulseAudio down our throats. So you need to have something to control audio with:

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixerAnd something to keep gnome-alsamixer within easy reach, provided by AllTray:

$ sudo apt-get install alltrayNow, one last word of advice. Usually the best solution is to use aptitude or synaptic to do these moves, but you'll run headfirst into their dependency resolution efforts, which command them to put PulseAudio back in your system when reinstalling gnome-alsamixer. So either you use apt-get or you reconfigure aptitude/synaptic dependency resolution to work the way you want.


I have followed these instructions and everything worked great until a re-start.

Now I have NO SOUND and even the log in screen with the ubuntu-drum? is not working. Here is what I get if I type gstreamer-properties in the terminal:


gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'artsdsink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'esdsink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'pulsesink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'glimagesink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'sdlvideosink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'v4lmjpegsrc'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'qcamsrc'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'esdmon'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'pulsesrc'


Also the media selector is using ALSA but no sound when testing.

Any ideas?

Everything worked fine before the restart, not sure what happend.

Thanks

[kaligus]

Hold the front page - I've successfully left Pulse...
I'm unsure as to HOW exactly I did it, but I'll bring you up to speed and maybe a more advanced penguin here could put 2+2 together... (see attached pics for proof)

Tried to remove PA a while ago, unsuccessfully, using these guides. After epic failure, I put PA back on but forgot to remove some ALSA related things first (like alsa-mixer, alsa-utils, the applet(s), etc).
Then did the usual update routine through update manager, and voila - all of a sudden my volume notifier (Fn + Up/Down) was the old ALSA gem, not the one that pops up in the up right like when you change screen brightness.
SO - then I just went into synaptic, unchecked Pulseaudio (note - I didn't do a Purge with apt-get or a 'Mark for COMPLETE removal', I just did the normal standard remove) and for some reason it didnt list 'Ubuntu-desktop' as a dependency or anything.
Since then - I have my tray applet, volume notifier, Skype actually works properly, boot up sounds remain, AND flash works (see attached screen shots for some proof).

So, escape from pulse can be done

Hope that info is of some use to someone, let me know if you need more info + i'll try my best to help.
Peace

I am very interested in knowing how this came to be just so I can have a sound that tells me when my headless machine has completed its bootup!

[ahso4271]

yea left pulse as well as it crashed flightgear and more. pulseaudio is simply not ready for prime time sorry.

[sieve]

Now I have NO SOUND and even the log in screen with the ubuntu-drum?
Also the media selector is using ALSA but no sound when testing.

Any ideas?

Everything worked fine before the restart, not sure what happend.

Thanks

A similar thing happened to me a few days ago. All of a sudden, no sound. I think it must be a result of an update that was pushed down.

I was able to fix it. Offhand, I don't recall how, but if I check some threads here, I should be able to figure it out. So stay tuned.

[Stosskraft]

I am still having trouble with this. I needed to re-start 5-6 times before I hear the drum on the boot up screen and then the audio works.

Does anyone have any idea what this could be?

Thanks

[Z06Gal]

I am still having trouble with this. I needed to re-start 5-6 times before I hear the drum on the boot up screen and then the audio works.

Does anyone have any idea what this could be?

Thanks


I do not know what it is but I was having the very same problem having to restart. Someone on the forum suggested that I disable system sounds in the sound module and I have not had a problem since. What that does I have no idea but it worked. :)

[zampes]

All my thanks to Hugo Alvarado; thanks so much for this, solved all my Pulse Audio related problems in 9.10, even 3 days before going 10.04 :)
I described my issues here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1452145

[sieve]

For those who have removed Pulseaudio as described in this thread, and upgraded to 10.04, did this cause problems regarding sound? I don't want to do the upgrade and then find out after the fact that it undid all my efforts to get my sound working acceptably.

[tommcd]

For those who have removed Pulseaudio as described in this thread, and upgraded to 10.04, did this cause problems regarding sound? I don't want to do the upgrade and then find out after the fact that it undid all my efforts to get my sound working acceptably.
I just did a clean install of Ubutnu 10.04. I then removed pulseaudio and gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio using:

sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
APT then removed a bunch of other pulseaudio related packages. It also removed the ubuntu-desktop metapackage.
With some trepidation, I let APT do it's thing. I have since logged out and rebooted with no ill effects. Sound works fine with alsa; and the ubuntu desktop is intact with all my settings preserved.
Pulse Audio is less of a resource hog in 10.04 than it was in 9.10. However, it still was using more of my CPU (around 3-4% with one sound app running, and up to 12-14% with 2 sound apps running) than alsa, so I removed it! I have no need for pulse audio.

Hope this helps.

[mgol]

I did an upgrade and then invoke the following:


sudo apt-get purge libcanberra-pulse pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-module-gconf pulseaudio-module-udev pulseaudio-module-x11 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils pavucontrol

sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer alsa-oss python-alsaaudio


Now it works OK.

[Rockin Robbins]

I just did a clean install of Ubutnu 10.04. I then removed pulseaudio and gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio using:

sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
APT then removed a bunch of other pulseaudio related packages. It also removed the ubuntu-desktop metapackage.
With some trepidation, I let APT do it's thing. I have since logged out and rebooted with no ill effects. Sound works fine with alsa; and the ubuntu desktop is intact with all my settings preserved.
Pulse Audio is less of a resource hog in 10.04 than it was in 9.10. However, it still was using more of my CPU (around 3-4% with one sound app running, and up to 12-14% with 2 sound apps running) than alsa, so I removed it! I have no need for pulse audio.

Hope this helps.

Just did it. I was pretty desperate, with the flaky sound totally ruining my computing experience with Ubuntu 10.04. Had blamed it on my relatively ancient Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card, which is marvelous under Windows XP. I had already burned a Kubuntu install disk to start again from scratch when I tried your fix. Rock solid audio now. It's great!

[tommcd]

I had already burned a Kubuntu install disk to start again from scratch when I tried your fix.
Kubuntu and now even Xubuntu also use pulse audio, so using Kubuntu would not be a solution. If you want a *buntu that does not use pulse audio, you would have to go to the new lighweight Lubuntu. There is also Crunchbang, but Crunchbang is still at version 9.04. Crunchbang 10 is currently at alpha stage.
Other distros, like Fedora and Mandriva also use pulse audio.


Rock solid audio now. It's great!
Glad to help. So was pulse audio a resource hog on your computer also? It is on mine. But at least it was less of a resource hog on 10.04 than it was on 9.10.
Some pulse audio tidbits:
http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/drivers/8100-why-you-should-care-about-pulseaudio-and-how-to-start-doing-it
http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/42129
http://www.unixlads.com/?p=179
We are not the only users who are frustrated by this!

[teet]

I did the steps outlined in this post: http://ubuntu-ky.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8284273&postcount=4
and everything is working like I want it now.

My major issue with pulse audio is that I have a mythtv frontend running all the time as a seperate x-screen via a tv-out. The frontend grabs all the audio and consequently I have no sound on my main x-screen.

I made a link to gnome-alsamixer and put it where the old volume mixer applet used to go. I chose a medium-volume icon and now everything at least LOOKS like it should (although the icon doesn't change based on the volume level, but I can live with that).

Maybe all this pulse audio nonsense will be sorted out by 12.04 :)

-teet

[Quake]

But now, another problem arise... how to make the keyboard volume work because it seems pulseaudio is MUCH MORE integrated than 9.04. In Jaunty, I didn't have that problem.

[teet]

But now, another problem arise... how to make the keyboard volume work because it seems pulseaudio is MUCH MORE integrated than 9.04. In Jaunty, I didn't have that problem.

Can you just redefine the shortcut key in System --> preferences --> keyboard shortcuts?

-teet

[feistybill]

tommcd, mgol,

THANK YOU!

I followed your instructions and now that piece of junk called PulseAudio is not infesting my machine anymore :)

[Quake]

Can you just redefine the shortcut key in System --> preferences --> keyboard shortcuts?

-teet
No, the shortcut is fine, but when you remove pulseaudio, it also removes the audio applet that takes command from the keyboard shortcut.

[mgol]

No, the shortcut is fine, but when you remove pulseaudio, it also removes the audio applet that takes command from the keyboard shortcut.

Try this:
https://launchpad.net/~dtl131/+archive/ppa/

[Quake]

Thank you very much for that link! I will try it when I get home

[Quake]

mgol (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=486086), I THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I finally removed the Pulseaudio virus! It could hit up to 35% in CPU usage.

I think I should blog about this!

[tyk]

Thank you Hugo Alvarado

[teamanx]

Here is the full command sequence to get rid of pulse with Lucid, that worked for me, based on the posts above. Just copy and paste onto the terminal:



sudo cp /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.bak
sudo sed /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.bak -e 's/\"\/usr\/share\/alsa\/pulse.conf\"/#\"\/usr\/share\/alsa\/pulse.conf\"/g' > /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dtl131/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common libesd-alsa0 alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base python-alsaaudio gnome-media libsdl1.2debian-alsa
sudo apt-get purge libcanberra-pulse pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-module-gconf pulseaudio-module-udev pulseaudio-module-x11 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils pavucontrol


Now reboot, log in, and add to the panel the "Volume Control" applet, by right-clicking on the panel and selecting "Add to the panel...". By clicking on the new applet and selecting "Volume Control", you can have access to all sound properties.

[mgol]

Why to install esound? ALSA is enough with its mixing capabilities, I guess.

I would also move the line:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dtl131/ppa

to the beginning. Otherwise some packages are installed twice - from standard repository and then upgraded, it's a waste of bandwidth.

[tommcd]

Why to install esound? ALSA is enough with its mixing capabilities, I guess.
I have never found it necessary to install any of the esound stuff either. I also have not installed any extra alsa stuff beyond what is included in a default Ubuntu 10.04 install.
Just removing pulseaudio and gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio will disable pulse audio and take almost all of the pulseaudio related packages away too.
Just run gstreamer-properties in the terminal after removing pulseaudio and set everything to alsa. I can control all the sound levels just fine with alsamixer in the terminal. Some of those alsa packages (e.g., alsa-base and alsa-utils) are already part of a default Ubuntu 10.04 install.
Installing the extra alsa packages will not hurt anything though; and it does give some extra GUI control over sound properties.


I would also move the line:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dtl131/ppa

to the beginning. Otherwise some packages are installed twice - from standard repository and then upgraded, it's a waste of bandwidth.
I don't bother with that ppa repo either.

[teamanx]

Why to install esound? ALSA is enough with its mixing capabilities, I guess.


That's OK, as long as your sound card supports hardware mixing. If it doesn't, then you must set up ALSA to use DMix, which needs extra config, and has worst performance than esound. That's my experience, but maybe I'm wrong and it is a better choice to stick with ALSA.

[yadayada2]

Well, I have followed your instructions, but now I cannot open Sound Recorder. I attached the error message as a screenshot.

Edit: I have to add that there are no "Sound Preferences" in the Preferences menu anymore.

[mgol]

Well, I have followed your instructions, but now I cannot open Sound Recorder. I attached the error message as a screenshot.

Edit: I have to add that there are no "Sound Preferences" in the Preferences menu anymore.

Did You add the dtl31 ppa repository, followed by update, upgrade and reboot?

[yadayada2]

I did. But it didn't change anything. Now I have done all steps again and rebooted. And still the error message appears.

[mgol]

Go to System->Preferences->Sound and check if You have an audio device set.

[yadayada2]

As you can see in the attached screenshot, there is no such option. :(

Edit: When I run the item "Default Sound Card" it seems nothing happens. When I run this link in a terminal, this will be the output
/usr/bin/asoundconf-gtk < ~

(process:2537): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
Using the fallback 'C' locale.
sh: /usr/bin/asoundconf: not found
You need to make sure asoundconf is active!
By default, asoundconf's configuration file is ~/.asoundrc.asoundconf
and must be included in ~/.asoundrc. Open this file to make sure it is!

[mgol]

As you can see in the attached screenshot, there is no such option. :(

It is probably hidden. Right click and choose "Edit menu" and then turn it on. If it's still not there, You can invoke it manually:

gnome-volume-control
Try also this:

gstreamer-properties

[yadayada2]

Thanks, now I can open this dialog from the command line. However, the Sound Recorder still gives the same error message.

Then I have tried your second command, which will give me another windows, as to be seen in the next attached screenshot. ALSA is selected as default input plugin, and as device, there is a default option.

When I click on "Test", I get ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture: Could not open audio device for recording.

There are also two options, both labeled ALC1200 Analog. Selecting one and then testing, a new dialogue appears. "Testing pipeline". A small block runs from the left to the right and back again, but nothing more happens.

[yadayada2]

Sorry, little update. Now I can open the Sound Recorder. I don't know, why this works now. Thanks anyway.

The only problem remaining is that the front mic still doesn't work. Seems that taking away pulseaudio didn't solve that problem.

[mgol]

Invoke

alsamixer
in the terminal and upload the screenshot.

[yadayada2]

Somehow this still calls for pulse.

[mgol]

Check if You really removed these packages (sometimes some error may prevent it, leave conf. files etc.)...

sudo dpkg --purge libcanberra-pulse pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-module-gconf pulseaudio-module-udev pulseaudio-module-x11 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils pavucontrol

Do You have ~/.asoundrc file? If so, remove it.

You can also check what You have in /etc/:


find /etc/ -name "*alsa*" 2>/dev/null
find /etc/ -name "*pulse*" 2>/dev/null

and check if any of found *alsa* files doesn't invoke PulseAudio in any way.

I'm running out of ideas - didn't You change a lot of stuff before upgrade to 10.04? I'm convinced it should work just OK after performing steps supplied by teamanx on a clean 10.04 install...

[yadayada2]

sudo dpkg --purge libcanberra-pulse pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-module-gconf pulseaudio-module-udev pulseaudio-module-x11 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils pavucontrol
dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove libcanberra-pulse which isn't installed.
dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove pulseaudio which isn't installed.
dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove pulseaudio-esound-compat which isn't installed.
dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove pulseaudio-module-bluetooth which isn't installed.
dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove pulseaudio-module-gconf which isn't installed.
dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove pulseaudi
o-module-udev which isn't installed.
dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove pulseaudio-module-x11 which isn't installed.
dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio which isn't installed.
dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove pulseaudio-utils which isn't installed.
dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove pavucontrol which isn't installed.


asoundrc is there, but it includes only the position of .asoundrc.asoundconf. This file reads like this:


pcm.!default { type pulse }
ctl.!default { type pulse }

[yadayada2]

martin@acer > find /etc/ -name "*alsa*" 2>/dev/null < ~
/etc/apm/scripts.d/alsa
/etc/apm/resume.d/20alsa
/etc/apm/suspend.d/80alsa
/etc/default/alsa
/etc/init/alsa-mixer-save.conf
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf.dpkg-dist
/etc/init.d/alsa-mixer-save


and


martin@acer (1) > find /etc/ -name "*pulse*" 2>/dev/null < ~
/etc/pulse

[yadayada2]

and check if any of found *alsa* files doesn't invoke PulseAudio in any way.


What do you mean by this?

[mgol]

asoundrc is there, but it includes only the position of .asoundrc.asoundconf. This file reads like this:

OK, it seems to be the source of the problem, they obviously refer to PA. Is this a file in Your home directory? Then delete both .asoundrc and .asoundrc.asoundconf (You can move them to the backup directory if You don't want to risk). After a reboot it should work.

[yadayada2]

I am sorry to say, but it still doesn' work. For now I will call it a night and try again tomorrow. Thanks again for all your help.

[mgol]

I'm out of ideas. Thos .asoundrc files suggest non-standard configuration (by default those files are not created). I believe with default installation everything should work properly. Maybe try to remember what You edited in the past and look into those files - I believe You have pulse entries written there.

[teamanx]

Actually, there is no sound properties in the "System" menu. What you have to do is adding the volume control applet to the panel, right-click on it, and selecting "Open volume control". Here is the sound properties dialog. Now, try to change the switches and sliders, specially those in the "Recording" tab, and see if you can record from the microphone. Some cards have also a switch called "Mic record" on the "Switches" tab.

[mgol]

Atry to change the switches and sliders, specially those in the "Recording" tab, and see if you can record from the microphone.
I doubt it'll help as he still has some PulseAudio junk in his OS...

[yadayada2]

@teamanx: Unfortunately, it's not as simple as that... :(

[yadayada2]

Do you have more hints how to narrow down what's causing the problem?

[seeker5528]

Well, I have followed your instructions, but now I cannot open Sound Recorder. I attached the error message as a screenshot.

Edit: I have to add that there are no "Sound Preferences" in the Preferences menu anymore.

If you don't find it in the menu, then you can always go to the command prompt and type 'gstreamer-properties'.

EDIT: saw this was answered already. Try uninstalling gstreamerXXX-pulseaudio package, currently showing in Synaptic as gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio on my system.

Later, Seeker

[teamanx]

I have added libsdl1.2debian-alsa for installing, so KDE apps (e.g. kdenlive) work with alsa.

[lqdc]

Thanks a lot to nullrend for the informative post on the first page.
I did everything according to this post:
http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8284273&postcount=4

Linux sounds now work (such as the boot sound), but with some cracking at the beginning of each sound.

However, when I play music or use any application that requires sound, the sound doesn't work - just cracks at the beginning.
Are the applications trying to use pulseaudio? How would I go about solving that?

[wasabishot]

Hello
so this thread worked perfect for me on my Hp pavilion 9730us, working on Lucid 10.04.

But.....
today I got in the mail a 3D sound usb device i bought on eBay, because my internal sound card makes a distortioned sound when connected to an external amplifier, and I can't make it work with the alsa.

It appears in lsusb as
JMTek, LLC.

it also appears in alsamixer as one of the sound cards but still no sound out nor in.

Does anybody have any idea?

[sieve]

Not sure if this is the same issue, but you could try the procedure as described in post #24 of this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1313831

[wasabishot]

thanks sieve... I already thanked you in the other thread... but just for ppl to know it works just great!!!

[cliang]

Try this:
https://launchpad.net/~dtl131/+archive/ppa/

I've removed pulseaudio and installed these packages but I'm having a problem where using the volume up/down shortcut keys causes the speaker popup to display but the volume doesn't change. It just shows the speakers as muted. I can control the volume just fine with the applet. Any clues why the key events aren't being handled properly?

[mgol]

Any clues why the key events aren't being handled properly?

Go to System -> Preferences -> Keyboard shortcuts and check if You have the proper keys assigned to Volume mute, down and up.

[cliang]

Go to System -> Preferences -> Keyboard shortcuts and check if You have the proper keys assigned to Volume mute, down and up.

The mute shortcut key works ok. The volume up and down keys don't do anything besides set the volume to the max and display the volume level with a bar that seems to break through the right side. :confused:

[stoppage]

Hi I have two questions on removing pulse-audio from Hardy 8.04.

Q1: I've heard there's a PPA Repo that re-installs „System-Preferences-Sound“ applet without Pulse. Has anybody any further information?

Q2: By purging Pulse do I lose „asoundconf-gtk“ (I need ability to select onboard sound or „SBLive“) sound card. Would appreciate any help here.

[mgol]

Q1: I've heard there's a PPA Repo that re-installs „System-Preferences-Sound“ applet without Pulse. Has anybody any further information?

It was already mentioned many times...

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dtl131/ppa


Q2: By purging Pulse do I lose „asoundconf-gtk“ (I need ability to select onboard sound or „SBLive“) sound card. Would appreciate any help here.

I don't know:

$ asoundconf-gtk
sh: /usr/bin/asoundconf: not found
You need to make sure asoundconf is active!
By default, asoundconf's configuration file is ~/.asoundrc.asoundconf
and must be included in ~/.asoundrc. Open this file to make sure it is!

However, I'm on 10.04. BTW, why don't You upgrade to 10.04? 8.04->10.04 path is supported and 10.04 is the newest LTS. 8.04 has only 9 months of life left.

[tommcd]

Hi I have two questions on removing pulse-audio from Hardy 8.04.
Q2: By purging Pulse do I lose „asoundconf-gtk“ (I need ability to select onboard sound or „SBLive“) sound card. Would appreciate any help here.
I can answer the second question: No, you will not loose asoundconf-gtk. The asoundconf-gtk package does not depend on pulseaudio. Pulseaudio is just a suggested package for asoundconf-gtk:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/asoundconf-gtk
It is the same on Lucid 10.04 btw.
You can confirm this on your own system by running:

aptitude show asoundconf-gtk
It should not list pulseaudio as a dependency.

In the event that you ever want pulseaudio back just reinstall it:

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio
And then the pulseaudio beast will be back on your system!

[Mattevt]

Here is the full command sequence to get rid of pulse with Lucid, that worked for me, based on the posts above. Just copy and paste onto the terminal:



sudo cp /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.bak
sudo sed /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.bak -e 's/\"\/usr\/share\/alsa\/pulse.conf\"/#\"\/usr\/share\/alsa\/pulse.conf\"/g' > /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dtl131/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common libesd-alsa0 alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base python-alsaaudio gnome-media libsdl1.2debian-alsa
sudo apt-get purge libcanberra-pulse pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-module-gconf pulseaudio-module-udev pulseaudio-module-x11 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils pavucontrol


Now reboot, log in, and add to the panel the "Volume Control" applet, by right-clicking on the panel and selecting "Add to the panel...". By clicking on the new applet and selecting "Volume Control", you can have access to all sound properties.

THANK YOU! A Million times! I was messing around with my Steelseries Siberia usb soundcard. I don't even know what I did but suddenly I had zero sound, everything was so wacky I can't even explain it. I completely removed PA, installed Alsa then I followed these instructions up to (but not including, no offense) the esound stuff, and everything is just golden. Thanks again, you have no idea.

[ZBlue]

Need help with this after removing pulseaudio :


http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1537824

[adkmom]

Hi all~

Not meaning to hijack- but this thread makes me believe part of my issue is PA. I'm running Mint 9/64. Logitech x-530 5.1 speakers, Realtek 889 sound.

There's just sooooo much bass coming from my sub that you can't listen to music. I've tried any equalizers in all music players installed (M, RhyBx, MovieP, VLC)- all the same. I've adjusted Pulse bass settings via slide bar- but it does nothing. I opened alsa mixer to make sure the correct sound was chosen- it was. I have XP running in Virtualbox- it has the same issue (though the speakers function properly in Windows). I'm d/l'ing PCLinuxOS right now to see if the issue exists in their livecd.

Is this a matter of program control mis-management? Are two programs trying to control sound? As a very n00b Linux user, I am hesitant to bork what I have so far. I've managed to d/l & install/tweak a lot of stuff- but the sound has me baffled, and I use my PC as my stereo, so it hurts!

Lastly- is there supposed to be a start-up sound in Mint? If so, I've never heard it...

T

[tommcd]

Here is a good article on controlling pulseaudio. It shows you how to control pulseaudio so you can turn it on or off when you want, without removing it:
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/7130/1/
I have not tried this, since I have already removed pulseaudio, and I do not want it back. It looks like an effective option instead of removing pulseaudio in case anyone wants to try it.

[dentaquet]

HELP!!

hi everyone! im on ubuntu 10.04, and i removed pulseaudio yesterday because i tought it was the reason why i had no sound in jack...and it also removed ubuntu-desktop! now i cant log on anymore...can i get it back from a console at startup? if so, how do i proceed?!

im panicking!

[mgol]

ubuntu-desktop is a meta-package, so removing it shouldn't screw anything up. However, You can always reinstall it in one of terminals:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
I assume You can log in the text console? (You can get there by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Fx, where x is between 1 and 6).

[brooklynzoo81]

Hello all. I hope i am posting in the right area. I had to completely remove Pulseaudio due to a hissing and static sound while playing any audio. Once i did that my sound icon on the upper right is gone. How would i go about getting this back? When i go to preferences and sound i get a pop up windows saying "Waiting for sound system to respond" also when i go to sound&video and click on gnome ALSA mixer, i get a error stating that some of your configurations will not work. I am running 10.04 64bit.

This week is the most i have used linux ever! so i am still a newbie in training with all of this. Too much Windows brain washing for me.

[riverfr0zen]

@brooklynzoo81, after removing pulseaudio did you install the alsa packages?

This post in this same thread should help you out if you haven't:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1313253&page=14#134

Otherwise, the following troubleshooting guide may also help:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting

[brooklynzoo81]

@brooklynzoo81, after removing pulseaudio did you install the alsa packages?

This post in this same thread should help you out if you haven't:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1313253&page=14#134

Otherwise, the following troubleshooting guide may also help:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting

Thanks for the reply back. I am not sure if i did. I remember typing in ALSA in the update manager and installing some stuff i saw from there but not sure if that was the right thing or not. What packages exactly are you referring to and or how can i found out? thanks.

[riverfr0zen]

They're listed in the comment at that first link I gave you:


sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer alsa-oss python-alsaaudio

[victorkruger]

Thank you all for this information to remove pulseaudio from the computer and just use alsa for sound. The problem that i had was that pulseaudio kept insisting to unmute my mic everytime i rebooted or woke up my laptop.

Now I have another issue, since i've removed pulse audio, my laptop does not remember or check to see if my headphones are plugged into my laptop and direct the audio to the speakers when i unmute my system or reboot my computer with the headphones plugged in. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to correct this?


Edit

I should probably put in some hardware info
Lenovo 3000 N200 running ubuntu 10.04

Edit2
I seem to have band-aided the issue for now.

I updated alsa drivers from this post:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6589810#post6589810

but that still didn't fix my issue.

I added the following to my /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf



options snd-hda-intel model=lenovo
options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1 enable=yes

rebooted, but my issue was still there.

I finally went into alsamixer and muted the front speakers and finally it worked. I can now mute then unmute and the front speakers don't play any sounds. I can unplug my headphones and the front speakers then play sound. I also rebooted to make sure the settings stayed the way they were and they did.

[Bucky Ball]

This fix is exactly what I am looking for. One problem: Anyone know how I'd remove Pulse and add ALSA in 8.04 LTS this easily rather than 10.04? I am having a nightmare:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9956634#post9956634
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1592896

[grahams]

Has anyone successfully removed Pulse from 10.10?

I've used this guide on 9.10 and 10.04 perfectly, but I noticed that libesd-alsa0 is not available is not available on 10.10. Is this needed on 10.10 for PulseFree audio.

[tommcd]

Has anyone successfully removed Pulse from 10.10?

The only thing you really need to do to remove pulseaudio is to remove pulseaudio and gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio. This will disable pulseaudio. All the other stuff in the guide on post #4 of this thread is optional.

[nh7o_hi]

After I removed pulse from my 10.04, I needed to restore the volume/mute keys. I found a small app called "volti" which does the trick.

http://code.google.com/p/volti/

However, it needs to be reloaded after a suspend/resume cycle. Probably because the intel-hda module gets removed and reloaded on resume. Otherwise a good solution.

[grahams]

I can confirm that it is safe to remove pulse in 10.10 and you just need to remove pulseaudio and gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio. Thanks Tommcd

For volume control and multimedia these steps works on 10.10 (and 9.10, 10.04)

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=70556&page=2



Btw. I tired volti, it looks nicer and simpler to install, but the multimedia keys didn't work and it has to be reloaded on reboot or resume.

[tommcd]

After I removed pulse from my 10.04, I needed to restore the volume/mute keys. I found a small app called "volti" which does the trick.

You can always just use alsamixer in the terminal. It works just as well as anything else. That is what I use.
If you want a GUI app you can install alsamixergui or gnome-alsamixer.

[nh7o_hi]

You can always just use alsamixer in the terminal. It works just as well as anything else. That is what I use.
If you want a GUI app you can install alsamixergui or gnome-alsamixer.

Yes, but Volti also enables the volume up-down-mute keys on this laptop, with the on-screen display. I use those constantly.

[Harrychillboy]

The above procedure works. I'll just repeat it for extra points, marked up properly.

Here is what I did to remove pulse audio in Karmic:


$ sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
$ sudo apt-get install alsa-base alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui alsa-utils alsa-oss linux-sound-base alsamixergui
$ sudo apt-get install esound esound-clients esound-common libesd-alsa0 gnome-alsamixerrestart your computer!

Notes:
-run gstreamer-properties in terminal to set defaults to alsa (the old system/preferences/sound in jaunty)
This means:

$ gstreamer-properties-remove gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio to get sound in totem.
The above commands should have taken care of that, but it never hurts to be sure when talking about the hydra that is PulseAudio.
-gnome-alsamixer is for changing the volume, not an applet but better that nothing
This means you are left without a panel applet to control volume across the board, thanks to the thoughtful efforts of Canonical to shove PulseAudio down our throats. So you need to have something to control audio with:

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixerAnd something to keep gnome-alsamixer within easy reach, provided by AllTray:

$ sudo apt-get install alltrayNow, one last word of advice. Usually the best solution is to use aptitude or synaptic to do these moves, but you'll run headfirst into their dependency resolution efforts, which command them to put PulseAudio back in your system when reinstalling gnome-alsamixer. So either you use apt-get or you reconfigure aptitude/synaptic dependency resolution to work the way you want.

Thanks a lot nullrend!!
It worked and finally I could trash pulseaudio, it never worked well and consumed to much cpu too.

[tommcd]

pulseaudio ... consumed to much cpu too.
This is the main problem with pulseaudio imo. Surely, the Ubuntu devs must be aware that pulseaudio is a huge resource hog. Does anyone know if the Ubuntu devs are planning to do anything at all about this? I realize that pulseaudio is an upstream package that the Ubuntu devs are not responsible for; but gee whiz, is anyone addressing this at all???

Perhaps pulseaudio could be offered as an option when you install Ubuntu. Or perhaps there could be a simple GUI app for turning pulseaudio on and off.

Here is an informative article that shows you how to turn pulseaudio on or off at will as an alternative to removing it (I posted a link to this previously in this thread):
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/7130/1/

[loxaheart]

Thank you soo much!! I was having the worst time with Pulse =( It actually got to the point where if I opened my browser, my mic would fail.

So, once again, thank you!

Signed,
<3 Grateful <3

[riverfr0zen]

I would not mind Pulseaudio if Ubuntu engineers were able to deliver the package without completely disrupting my computer's entire sound system, including the direct connection to the soundcard and/or PS3.

There are a lot of benefits to enabling the package--simultaneous visualizations of applications that are using up all of the sound system resources, graphic identification of audio cards and even *porno*graphic audio-channel capabilities.

I'm not saying I'm ungrateful to the people at Canonical -- you guys do a great job, it's just I wish you would do a *better job* with pulseaudio.

[snuffy47]

I removed pulse audio and it appears to have fixed some of my sound issues.

But now when I try to run alsamixer I get

ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

cannot open mixer: Connection refused

Any help?

[mgol]

But now when I try to run alsamixer I get

ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

This is very little information. Did you try to google it? If so, what steps did you perform, what did you check?

It's a bit impolite of you to ask for help without even trying to find the answer by yourself. For example, first link obtained by googling your error message is:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45884
Did you check that?

Show some initiative! After all, we are not paid for trying to help here.

[snuffy47]

Funny you posted that post

I did try that post and there really is not that much on google regarding that error.

Not sure that I am being needy here I have been struggling with my audio on my htpc since installing 10.04.

I am not a linux expert and appreciate any help I ever recieve from this site.

I didnt figure I would be the only one to see this error

One more note I have spent most of the day tring to get this stuff to work.

[mgol]

I did try that post and there really is not that much on google regarding that error.

http://tinyurl.com/alsapulse


I am not a linux expert and appreciate any help I ever recieve from this site.

You don't have to be. It would just be nice if you google about this problem first and wrote here what you tried, then we would could actually exclude some possible problems. Your error is too generic.

BTW: you still didn't answer my question: what exactly did you try to do to fix this problem (like, did you try this link I provided? If it didn't help, why? Was the file they're talking about missing or was there any other problem connected to this proposed solution?)

Nobody here is a magician, we need some feedback from you to help you!

[tommcd]

I removed pulse audio and it appears to have fixed some of my sound issues.
How did you remove pulseaudio?
Make sure you that pulseaudio and gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio are uninstalled.


But now when I try to run alsamixer I get
ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused
cannot open mixer: Connection refused

Be sure to run gstreamer-properties from the terminal and set everything to alsa. Also be sure you have the alsa-utils package installed.
As per the link that Mgol provided, try renaming ~/.asoundrc (if you have this file) to ~/.asoundrc.bak. Then reboot and see if you can run alsamixer.
Please write back with what you have tried to fix this.

[snuffy47]

I was following post #4 in this thread.

I actually removed that file already following one of the google posts that I was also using.

I did save a copy and will put it back with the different name but not sure that makes sense to me :(

Going to go through post #4 again.

How would I ensure that gstream and all of pulseaudio is removed?

@mgol I tried the dkg line in terminal and the file was present I removed it. The difference with my problem was I did not see the first error.

As for google the 4 search finds after the debian first one have no information that seem use full.

http://pastebin.com/SeqVajvC I tried to start from the begining but damn error is still there. plus a small melt down when I lost my desktop lol

Finished the other post also again

ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

cannot open mixer: Connection refused

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45884

sudo dpkg-reconfigure alsa-utils

no work still error

sudo apt-get install libasound2-plugins (already installed)

No fix :(

~/.asoundrc renamed to asoundrc.bak using gksudo nautilus

That file did reappear after all the terminal work.

Same error :(

[tommcd]

I was following post #4 in this thread.
As per your pastebin link:
You really did not need to go through all of that. All I have ever done to remove pulseaudio was to remove pulseaudio and gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio. Then I run gstreamer-properties and set everything to alsa. However, everything worked fine for me before I ever even bothered to run gstreamer-properties.
Make sure alsa-base and alsa-utils and gstreamer0.10-alsa are installed. On my Xubuntu install these are the only alsa packages I have installed. (I also have libsdl1.2debian-alsa; but I don't think you even need that).


How would I ensure that gstream and all of pulseaudio is removed?
You could look in Synaptic Package Manager, or (what I do), install aptitude and run from the terminal:

aptitude search pulseaudio A "p" before a package means the package is purged (i.e., not installed). A "i" before a package means it is installed.
Just install aptitude and post the output of:
aptitude search pulseaudio and
aptitude search alsa
(Use code tags to post these outputs please. This is the # icon at the top of the post window).
This will tell us exactly what you have and don't have.


~/.asoundrc renamed to asoundrc.bak using gksudo nautilus
There is no need to use gksudo with configuration files in your home directory. These files are owned by you and can thus be edited or removed from your regular user account without using sudo.

[kovo1533]

Hey guys it looks like I have a final solution for this problem. My both ubuntu computers are working without this **** called pulseaudio also icon in notification area works and volume bar too.
Also my friend help me resolve volume keys problem. SO :
My ubuntu is 9.10 on big computer and 10.04 on notebook.

Zoot7 wrote a great article in this formum how to recompile panel applets to include volume applet, just one o two improvements, so step by step:

At first say goodbye to pulseaudio:

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio
... now reboot the computer to let changes take effect and after reboot we can continue with game.

... ALSA should take control over the soundsystem after this reboot, my experiences are that sound works (also sound from multiple sources at one time) you do not need to install anything and can continue to next steps ... if no, lot of posts are i this thread describing how to get sound working using ALSA, after that you can come back and continue

Open console:

satisfi depencies:

sudo apt-get install devscripts build-essential fakeroot

sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-applets

CD to your home directory:

cd ~

Make directory called for example "build":

mkdir build

CD to this directory:

cd build

get source code

apt-get source gnome-applets

Then you're going to have to specify the configure options to enable the mixer applet. To do that:

gedit debian/rules
... Look for the line that starts with

DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS +=
(in my case there were two lines with this, but I edited only the first and it was enough) and add another option to this line:

--enable-mixer-applet

OK now trick from me... When you klick sound icon in tray (!! I mean notification area NOT indicator applet, maybe icon will appear in indicator applet too but I haven't tried it ...) the widnow with volume bar will appear. Also there is button called "Volume control" and here is the point of joke.
By clicking this button your system want to open "gnome-volume-control" ("system >> preferences >> sound" for better imagine) which is not working because you purged pulseaudio.
But it is possible to resolve this by editing this source file:

gedit mixer/applet.c
search for:

gnome-volume-control
(it is only expression in file like this, in my case line number 707) and rewrite it to any command you like, I used:

gnome-alsamixer
which is program - mixer from repos and can be installed by:

sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer
... now save and close and follow to next steps ...

now we are going to build .deb packages
first install this (i get error first time, something about gstreamer inproper version i dont remember)

sudo apt-get install libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev

now build debs

dpkg-buildpackage -b -j4 -D
compiling takes me about 10 minutes, after that finish CD one directory up

cd ..

leave console (terminal) opened and just for sure open file browser (nautilus) in your build directory and check if there are three .deb packases named gnome-applets-"something", but no reason why shouldnt ... so continue ...

Now we can go for beer, we are close to finish ...instal this debs by

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

...restart GDM after this (logout/login will be enough to do it)

...now FINALLY right click on panel >> add to panel >> you should see volume control somewhere ... that's it

... oops I forgot ... It's good to not allow update-manager or something another to overwrite this packages so go to system >> administration >> synaptic and search for this packages:

gnome-applets
gnome-applets-data
gnome-applets-dbg

... and lock them (mark package, from upper menu: package >> lock version, apply for all three packages)

http://kovo.webovka.eu/linux/alsa-vol-control/3.png

http://kovo.webovka.eu/linux/alsa-vol-control/1.png

http://kovo.webovka.eu/linux/alsa-vol-control/2.png

In next post I want to explain using multimedia keys / function keys and notifications