Safely Remove Pulseaudio?

[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 of allowing chinesse authorities to spy the users.
- Occidentals are not safe either: It seems that a function to extract 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 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-alsamixer

restart 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=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!!!

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

Also flash seems to be working as well

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