[ubuntu] Safely Remove Pulseaudio?

[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

[seeker5528]

Originally Posted by 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

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/...-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]

Originally Posted by 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!!!!

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]

Originally Posted by Wilbefast 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:

Originally Posted by Wilbefast 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.