# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Other Discussion and Support > Tutorials > Outdated Tutorials & Tips >  How To: The (almost) Perfect Pulse Audio Setup

## zman0900

After much tinkering, I have finally found a setup with Pulse Audio on Hardy that I am happy with.  Since a lot of people are having trouble with it, here's what I did:  

*Updates:*
Added link to method for 5.1 soundPatched SDL pulse driver.  See changes in Step 3: libsdl1.2debian-all is no longer needed.
I've submitted a bug to try to get this patch incorporated in the Ubuntu version: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s....2/+bug/225467Created repository for new pulse drive (supports i386, amd64, and lpia)
More changes to Step 3 now.

1) *Install additional packages*


```
sudo apt-get install libao-pulse libasound2-plugins
```

2) *Configure settings*
    --edit your /etc/asound.conf file like so:


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

    --edit your /etc/libao.conf like so:


```
default_driver=pulse
```

    Create any files that don't exist.

    --Go to System>Preferences>Sound
    --Set the top four boxed to PulseAudio Sound Server
    --Set the Default mixer to the name of your sound card

3) *Install additional Pulse packages*


```
sudo apt-get install libflashsupport padevchooser pulseaudio-module-hal pulseaudio-module-x11
```

Allow it to install the additional dependencies.

*--Updated here:--*
To ensure you have the default libSDL install, first run this:


```
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian libsdl1.2debian-alsa
```

Now add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list (this will add my repository, it only the packages you need):


```
## zman0900's PPA
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/zman0900/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/zman0900/ubuntu hardy main
```

Now run the following:


```
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio
```

*Note:* If libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio will not install for you, do the following two things instead:


```
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian-all
```

and add this to ~/.profile :


```
# Make SDL audio work properly with Pulse
#export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse
```

Both libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio and libsdl1.2debian-all contain that patched Pulse driver, all just requires you to explicitly use Pulse with the SDL_AUDIODRIVER environment variable.  
*--End Update--*

5) *Set up device chooser*
Go to Applications>Sound & Video>PulseAudio Device Chooser
It will show up as a plug in notification area.
Left click, click Preferences, check Start applet on session login.  

6) *RESTART THE COMPUTER!*
Everything should be set up now.  You should now be able to play audio through both ALSA, esd, and Pulse applications at the same time, and everything will show up in the Device Chooser as a separate, configurable stream.  

*Additional Info:*
See the PulseAudio website for info about many other applications:
http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSe...tyApplications

*About OSS applications:*
If you want to use an OSS application at the same time as any other sounds playing through Pulse, us the command:


```
padsp <some-oss-program>
```

This should work for any OSS application.  That will redirect the sound through Pulse.  Without padsp, the OSS application is the only thing that can play sound while its running.  

*Possible Method for 5.1 Sound:*
See here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...38&postcount=4

*Current Issues:* 
Wine does not work properly through alsa, esd, or oss.The pulse driver for SDL has a very slight audio lag, but it is much less than with the esd driver.Some other programs may not work that well with alsa through Pulse.
See bug: http://www.pulseaudio.org/ticket/285
Post something if you know of more.

----------


## rabid9797

worked perfectly  :Smile:  i initially came looking to see if i could fix flash playback, but i ended just following the entire guide and it worked without any flaws/bugs! thanks

----------


## irshadcharm

will 5.1 surround sound work if i follow the exact steps? This is my sound card....Please help...



```
cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#* | grep Codec
```

Output:



```
Codec: SigmaTel STAC9221 A1
```

----------


## zman0900

I believe some additional steps will be required, these steps give you the default 2 channel setup.  If you search the forums some more, I think I may have seen something about getting 5.1 sound to work with Pulse, so you might try that after this.  I myself don't have the hardware to test it.

----------


## impert

Thanks, but it didn't work for me.

----------


## Zorael

Do note that Skype won't work until they change how it interacts with ALSA. There is a workaround which dumbs down pulse, disabling stuff like automatic device detection and volume settings individual to apps. If, like me, you only use Skype for the chat anyway, you can grab the OSS version for the time being, and alter your shortcuts to launch it with padsp. The sound stutters, so your voice chat experience may be mediocre, but stuttering "new message" notifications don't bother me much.

I downloaded it (Skype OSS), extracted it into /opt/skype.oss, then made a wrapper script and saved it as */usr/local/bin/skype.oss*. Off the top of my head:


```
#!/bin/bash

padsp /opt/skype.oss/skype &
```



```
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/skype.oss
```

http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-oss

----------


## Jerdsy

Has anyone tried this with Xubuntu?

----------


## durand

Cool, seems to work with sdl games (no sound but I can see the stream in pavucontrol). I guess it will work when I restart. Thanks  :Smile:

----------


## jorge.py

I get 5.1 working with this:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...38&postcount=4

----------


## durand

Thanks for the 5.1 trick!

----------


## niceguy123

I followed the instructions in the first post. For some reason sudo gedit would would work half way though. I restarted my computer and the youtube sound worked. I completed the process anyway, but am not sure what I gained.

----------


## v4169sgr

Please see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=828338

Followed this guide carefully, making sure to make backups at every stage of all config files edited, and having bookmarked the guide itself.

All flash, sound applications etc work as before, no change, which is a relief, at least nothing broken [apart from the gdm drums].

On loading my sample SDL application, frozen-bubble, without SDL_AUDIODRIVER set on the same line, I have same behaviour as before i.e. massive CPU utilisation, uncloseable application, no sound.

With



```
SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse frozen-bubble
```

I have, normal CPU utilisation [i.e. much less than before], an application I can close out of easily, but ... still no sound.



```
This is the output:

        [[ Frozen-Bubble-2.1.0 ]]

  http://www.frozen-bubble.org/

  Copyright (c) 2000-2006 The Frozen-Bubble Team.
 
    Artwork: Alexis Younes
             Amaury Amblard-Ladurantie
    Soundtrack: Matthias Le Bidan
    Design & Programming: Guillaume Cottenceau
    Level Editor: Kim and David Joham

  Originally sponsored by Mandriva <http://www.mandriva.com/>

  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2, as
  published by the Free Software Foundation.

[SDL Init] [Graphics............] 
Warning: can't initialize sound (reason: No available audio device).
[Levels] Ready.
```

I have a C-Media CMI8768, and the the default mixer track is set to the device itself.

Thanks very much indeed for the guidance so far, which shows that I am on the right track. How do I get SDL sound from here?

----------


## v4169sgr

Solved!

I somehow missed this step



```
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio
```

because I used the update manager straight away after updating the sources list [after backing it up first!  :Wink: ].

Using synaptic to correct that solved my SDL gaming sound issues.

Magic! :Popcorn:  :KDE Star:

----------


## abhiroopb

A few problems:

1. I actually did not have ANY issues with sound, I did not know about the Pulse Audio issue and I did not see why any of this was necessary, the reason I did this is because I posted elsewhere that I was having problems with skype sound. So could someone explain why this would be potentially useful?

2. Skype is still not working (i.e. ringing) when other sound is playing. This is most crucial at this point, the only problem, issue, I am having.

Please help!

----------


## abhiroopb

Just to add I reverted all of the changes and it is just as before so again I would like to ask what is the point of this fix?

----------


## zman0900

> what is the point of this fix?


When Hardy was originally released, there were some problems playing SDL games with the new pulse audio system, and this was a fix for that.  I believe this problem has also been solved by the updated kernels that have been released, but I don't know for sure.  This guide also enables the full pulse audio system, hardy only uses about 1/4 of it.  It enables the device chooser where you can set volume for individual apps and soundcards, move apps from one soundcard to another, or even play things through multiple soundcards.  Also, alsa is configured properly for pulse so that it redirects through pulse.

As for Skype, it is one of those problem apps with Pulse.  I believe skype uses OSS which means you should be able to run it through padsp to get sound from it and pulse at the same time, but Skype's sound system is written very strangely so it does not work properly with Pulse at this time.  I think there may also be an ALSA version of skype availabe, but I heard that it had problems with unsteady, crackling sound.  Perhaps this is fixed by the new kernel, or maybe the new libasound2-plugins (see link to other guide a page or 2 back).  If that doesn't work, you only choice may be one of those guides for completely removing pulse from hardy and returning to pure ALSA.  Good luck.

----------


## abhiroopb

Thanks a lot for the explanation. As it stands I installed Hardy: watched movies in mplayer/smplayer, used amarok for music, played Enemy territory quake wars, played numerous other games, and basically done virtually everything in ubuntu. Everything worked GREAT, perfect in fact. The only problem was that skype would not work while another device was using the sound. Basically lets say I was watching a movie, and someone called, I would see skype was ringing but I would not be able to hear anything. This is fine I guess, but the MAIN issue was that when I answered the call I still could not hear anything. This means I basically have to reject the call, pause the other app thats using sound and call that person back.

Whwere are the guides for removing pulse?

Thanks

----------


## zman0900

> Whwere are the guides for removing pulse?


I don't have a link, but I think I've come across one or two in the forums.  Search some, or try google, its in the tubes somewhere.

----------


## eng12345

only ****** it up even worse. how do i undo this?

----------


## wingnux

Anyone also having crappy sound on sdlmame?

----------


## blackvd

I'm still curious as to why my media keys quit working no matter what i try to do to fix them? Seems odd that anything i did would have affected them.

----------


## JoshLukas

I don't know where to post this exactly, since there are some other threads to pulse audio, SPDIF etc. But, this seems to be the most active thread concerning with pulseaudio.
Unfortunately, following the howto posted in this thread didn't work for me. I got no Audio at all. Since, I can't even activate spdif with alsa, I decided to let pulseaudio do the stuff. With the A52 codec now everything is going out via spdif (coax) as Dolby Digital. The description what I've done is posted on my site. However, there is still a problem which is a bit annoying. The sound is somehow pitched down, so everything sounds weird and slow. And from time to time the sound is shuttering heavily. Mostly while synaptic is working, if unzipping large files, or copying a larger amount of files. Sometimes sound stops working and only a reboot helps to get sound again. Is there a solution to get sound working properly with ALSA, or Pulseaudio via SPDIF? Can somebody give me some help or advice?
My hardware is described on my site as well.

Thx,

Josh

----------


## JoshLukas

dingdong

----------


## PCasau

Hi! I'm just new to ubuntu and I also have some sound problems. I'd like very much to go through this How-To but I just can't find asound.conf. What does that mean?

----------


## supta

It works for me. i got no sound problem with rhythmbox and flash anymore.

BTW, i don't install libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio from your repo. i install it from ubuntu repo and didn't get any problem after finishing this installation.

----------


## quall

I LOVE YOU, I love you , ILOVEYOU ILOVEYOU 
I - L- O - V -E - Y - O - U

Jesus, I am so freaking happy. I have spent days upon days trying to fix my audio issues. 

This fixed the embedded audio buttons on my Vostro 1500. They now alter the audio of the selected device, which is my USB surround system.

Not only that, but the PulseAudio applet flat out rocks. Frozen-bubble, which I could NEVER get audio working properly on the USB device, can now be forced to a specific audio device through that app. Rhythmbox was using my laptop speakers too, even with the USB sound completely defaulted everywhere. After this fix, it goes to the USB device. I cannot express my gratitude, I can finally listen to my music and watch movies in decent sound.....

PCasau, I had no asound.conf either. I simply created it (he says to do this at the end of the post).

----------


## rockstar

So I followed this How to.  Then I read all 13 paged to make sure I wasn't being redundant. When I went to System>Preferences>Sound and hit test.  Then I get the failed to connect dialogue.  I double checked all the steps. So when it still didn't work I tried the Ubuntuwiki 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio

I then:



> Now, go into Applications -> Sound and Video -> click on PulseAudio Preferences.
> 
>     *
> 
>       Checkmark all three options under Network Access. This will allow other computers on your LAN with PulseAudio to access this computer's sound devices.
>     *
> 
>       Checkmark Enable Multicast/RTP Receiver. This allows receiving multicast streams from other systems on your LAN.
>     *
> ...


Now when I hit "test" the entire system crashes and shuts down! I don't know what I did.

----------


## quall

If you hit test on the specific audio device instead of PulseAudio, in System -> Preferences -> Sound, does any sound play? If not then it might be a problem with the device installation and not PA.

----------


## pokipoki08

The guide work perfect but under Sound Preferences, you must check "Enable Software Sound Mixing (ESD)", otherwise the connection will be refused. I also get buzzing on the left channel but it was solved after following Parts A, C and D of the guide below

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4928900

----------


## jmate24

Thanx!!!!!!!!!!!! :LOL:

----------


## Roasted

Is there a big advantage to pulse audio over alsa?

I have scratchy audio at high volume using vlc, amarok, and sometimes youtube. Other programs, such as audacious, or even vlc (but only when I play movies) play perfectly in perfect clarity at high volume.

I'm wondering if switching to pulse would be a wise move and may help with this issue?

----------


## quall

Well, I think it is better. I like the fact that multiple applications can play sound through the same sound device at the same time. I can adjust the volume on the application level (where no controls exist), and I can specify which device each application should use.

I did not have any of the issues you speak of though, but it can't hurt to try it, I mean, you select it as the default device in the sound settings. If you don't like PA, then you can just select alsa again. Just make sure that you get the PulseAudio applet if you install pulse.

----------


## markbuntu

Well, pulse does not play nice with oss or jack but then again, jack has its own issues.

----------


## furyy

It's bit weird that padevchooser doesn't come installed by default by now  :Confused: 
Atleast in intrepid pa is using pc speaker as default sink  :Confused:  and you could set new default sink / move streams with padevchooser.

----------


## blaise69

I'm having trouble recording from my main Line-in when using Pulse Audio.

Following this guide has enabled me to have sound through multiple applications without any problems, so I'm happy with that.

However the only capture devices seem to be my mic from the front of my machine, I also have a mic and Line-in on the back of my machine, I intend to use the Line-in to record my guitar from.

How can I get this identified and working?

Cheers,

Blaise.

----------


## MillDaKill

Thanks for the guide,  I just made the changes today and I will report back with my status.  Hopefully this fixes my crashing "pulseaudio -d" problem which happens about every 15 mins..

----------


## AmbroseBierce

Hey,
I tried thsi method out and it only partly works. Sound works but my internal mic ins`t working anymore. But some how it also works when i use the skype-static-oss version. If i try to record via the ubuntu recording tool it says(free translated from German^^) "Problem with Dataflow" and also "no subclass defined" or something like that. Does anybody else have this problem? How to solve it?

----------


## Striken

Followed the guide, and lost all sound I had.

Thanks anyway.

----------


## emshains

I dont have the .conf files in /etc/

----------


## d4v1dv00

Sweet, now my sound is back with please. TQ

----------


## POW R TOC H

This worked like a charm... Thank you!

----------


## kofshower

How I can do this step if I use KUbuntu?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Set the Default mixer to the name of your sound card

----------


## ZootNerper

Thanks. It seems to have improved things.

-- Zoot

----------


## omshanti

Success! Thank you; this has been frustrating me for a while.

----------


## ivodalves

Hi,

My laptop is working ok with pulse now, except one thing.

It may look stupid but I only have sound in my hearphones. I don't have sound in the laptop speakers.

Can anyone help?

Best regards,

Ivo

----------


## art.in.memphis

I followed this to the letter but still no sound.  I had to change settings from DEFAULT to my preferred sound card in the PulseAudio Applett to get this to work. My card is a CA0106 Soundblaster.  I have that card set as the default card in the *.conf files but I still had to make the manual selection in PulseAudio Applet

I hope this helps someone.

----------


## oni5115

Not working for me at the moment, but I am also using UbuntuLite / LXDE.  So I can't exactly:




> Create any files that don't exist.
> 
> --Go to System>Preferences>Sound
> --Set the top four boxed to PulseAudio Sound Server
> --Set the Default mixer to the name of your sound card


Will installing the 'sound preferences' application bring a ton and a half of gnome dependencies with it?  what application is it in the repos?

Basically, everything looks like its working - the pulse volume meters are showing sound, padevchooser is working properly, and everything, but I just hear no sound from anything.

----------


## CNLiberal

I am using an nForce2 motherboard with the SPDIF output.  I can open up the Volume Meter in PUlse and can see sounds playing, but I'm getting nothing over my speakers.  I know the receiver is setup correctly (as it works in Windows).  What do I have to do to get SPDIF working?  I have followed your guide on the first page.  Thanks for the assistance!

Jim

----------


## alejaaandro

thnx man, int worked great....

----------


## markbuntu

> I am using an nForce2 motherboard with the SPDIF output.  I can open up the Volume Meter in PUlse and can see sounds playing, but I'm getting nothing over my speakers.  I know the receiver is setup correctly (as it works in Windows).  What do I have to do to get SPDIF working?  I have followed your guide on the first page.  Thanks for the assistance!
> 
> Jim


You can get the SPDIF to work in your alsa mixer, whichever one you use. Unfortunately for us, the pulseaudio devs have not figured out yet how to parse devices other than device 0 from ALSA and SPDIF/IEC958 digital devices are usually device 1 or 2 on sound cards so it must be done in ALSA. There is more info about getting digital output to work in some links from here:


http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/Main_Page

----------


## CNLiberal

If that's the case, and Pulse can't handle SPDIF, then I'm not a happy boy.  Can I edit the asound.conf and tell it to dump all audio out of the SPDIF while still using Pulse?

----------


## markbuntu

You don't need to edit your asound.conf. All you should have to do is enable the SPDIF output in any alsa mixer and it should work. You may have to set the preferences of your apps to ac3 bypass. There is a digital link from this page that will help you get set up:

http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/Main_Page

According to the pulse devs, it is difficult for them to determine which devices are actually independent/usable. They claim it is a ALSA  problem and that ALSA does not export device info so they have no way to tell if a device is usable.

Do not expect any quick solution to this problem.

----------


## carl0sgm

Hi..

I don't understand this:

and add this to ~/.profile :
Code:

# Make SDL audio work properly with Pulse
#export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse

what does this mean?

I hope somebody can help me!

----------


## kevx

Thanks for that. :Smile:

----------


## markbuntu

> If that's the case, and Pulse can't handle SPDIF, then I'm not a happy boy.  Can I edit the asound.conf and tell it to dump all audio out of the SPDIF while still using Pulse?


There is a workaround here to get PulseAudio to recognize your digital output, it may work for you but there are some issues:

http://www.pulseaudio.org/ticket/139

----------


## bigjig

yo buddy, just installed Ubuntu 3 days ago, been using OpenSUSE so long! 

Ubuntu is so comfortable... thanks for the fix though mate! worked perfectly fine.

cheers.

----------


## shane2peru

This sooooooo did not work for me.  I'm going back through and reversing the steps to see if I can get my sound back.  At least I had sound before.  :Smile:  

Shane

----------


## bigjig

> This sooooooo did not work for me.  I'm going back through and reversing the steps to see if I can get my sound back.  At least I had sound before.  
> 
> Shane


Sorry to hear that mate. I am hoping u followed it exactly as it says on the steps.

One thing i've noticed.....




> add this to ~/.profile :
> 
> Code:
> # Make SDL audio work properly with Pulse
> #export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse


I personally think the # in line 2 is a typo so when I updated my .profile I removed the #. You can try that.

I've resolved that but I have now noticed that the sound recorder wont record anything from the microphone input! I never tried to do that before installing the pulse drivers so cant say if its messed the microfone input.

I dont know how to fix that but I am still looking for a fix on that.

----------


## shane2peru

I did follow the instructions to a tee, the only difference I did was to backup one of the files before editing it.  :Smile:   At any rate, turns out my problem was more of a problem with Audacity than with my sound setup.  I compiled Audacity for my machine and am back at work with it.

Shane

----------


## dkavraal

it did work for me. thank you.

Linux abc-laptop 2.6.24-19-generic #1 SMP Wed Aug 20 22:56:21 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
(ubuntu 8.04 hardy heron)

----------


## directcharitycontribution

> After much tinkering, I have finally found a setup with Pulse Audio on Hardy that I am happy with.  Since a lot of people are having trouble with it, here's what I did:   ....
> Post something if you know of more.


did you say 

and backup they files first?

and can toglle you sounds?




> Posted by zman0900  "It wouldn't surprise me if it is a bug in Pulse, it is a nice audio system, but it is far from being ready for main stream use. Putting it in a LTS distribution like this was probably not a great idea, but at least it will get some of the bugs out in the open. Though I really think there should be an easy option to remove it for those who don't feel/can't work around the bugs."
> 
> Here's how you can remove pulseaudio:
> 
> From the ubuntu wiki:
> Quote:"PulseAudio Removal
> 
> If you decide you no longer like PulseAudio and would like to disable it: Remove the added lines to /etc/asound.conf If /etc/asound.conf did not exist when you installed PulseAudio, you may remove /etc/asound.conf entirely.
> 
> ...

----------


## svaens

well.. i've also got the problem (i assume everyone has) 
that the startup sound (when the login screen appears) no longer occurs. 

So it is because pulse is not yet running? 

I quite liked that drum sound..... and now i can have no start-up sound? 
Security risk? 

Is this going to be resolved?

----------


## Crowder

this fix seemed at first to help, but ended up causing many of my applications to crash. here is some of the output from Pidgin, which crashed every time it needed to play a login, logoff, or IM sound -



```
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 06:29:35 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.41.fb1
Content-Length: 105
Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: private, no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
Connection: close
Content-Type: application/x-javascript; charset=utf-8

(01:29:35) blist: Updating buddy status for <my buddy's screen name went here> (AIM)
E: context.c: waitpid(): No child processes
*** PULSEAUDIO: Unable to connect: Internal error
(01:29:35) util: Writing file blist.xml to directory /home/crowder/.purple
(01:29:35) util: Writing file /home/crowder/.purple/blist.xml
Segmentation fault
```

so far the only real solution i have found for pulseaudio (at least on my machine) is to remove it completely. that seems to be the only way of keeping it from trying to handle everything. Granted, this means only one process can use the audio drivers at a time, but i think i can live with that at least for a while.

i ended up having to go through and undo all the changes this called for.

But thanks anyway! looks like a lot of thought went into this, and it worked for some of us!

----------


## Kelen.Chang

nice solution and worked for me perfect.

----------


## TMcKSmith

Thanks OP...worked perfectly!  This has been bugging me for months.

----------


## Ian Clark

OK First of all, I'm on Intrepid (which has supposedly fixed the Audacity/pulse conflict), AND I can't get sound from different sources at the same time (particularly after using FF).  Is this solution appropriate for me?

Second, I look at this guide, get to this step, and wonder what part of the /etc/asound.conf file this should be added to:



> --edit your /etc/asound.conf file like so:
> 
> 
> ```
> pcm.pulse {
>     type pulse
> }
> ctl.pulse {
>     type pulse
> ...


The file has three or four sections, and I don't think I should just replace the whole file with the above.  Same with the second one.  Where should I put these two pieces of code?  Any help would be appreciated!  Thanks for the guide!

----------


## bjourne

Didn't work for me either. Went from almost working sound setup (except flash) to no sound at all. Dell XPS laptop.

----------


## agentsmith23

I am running Jaunty 9.04 and I can't seem to find /etc/asound.conf. Was it removed?

----------


## suebaby41

E: Malformed line 60 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list (dist parse) E: The list of sources could not be read.  The above is what I get when I try to follow any directions to get sound for CD's or media players.  Help!  Cannot hear CD's or Banshee or other installed players.  Never mind.  I found the answers.  Thanks.

----------


## Quarterpipesmoker

> ```
> # Make SDL audio work properly with Pulse
> #export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse
> ```


Why is the 2. line also commented out? Shouldn't it be uncommented?

----------


## mocha

> Why is the 2. line also commented out? Shouldn't it be uncommented?


Yeah, he made a typo.  FWIW, under Jaunty I've found that I need to use SDL_AUDIODRIVER="esd" instead.  There is some strange bug with some SDL programs and pulseaudio 0.9.14+ that cause intermittent high CPU usage unless you do this.

----------


## wayward4now

> Thanks for the 5.1 trick!


It's ALMOST perfect. Sound playback in warzone2100 is choppy. Everything else seems fine, so far. Thanks for the effort. I'm running Karmic + KDE. Ric

----------


## Epaminond

I'm running Xubuntu 9.10. The problem was in listening to the music from FF and talking over Skype.
The guide from the first post helped me! Thanks!!!

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## cathyn

This isn't working for me.  When I open Pulse Audio Manager, it looks like the Default Source and Default Sink are both still set to alsa devices, which I imagine should be changed, but to what I am unsure.  Any suggestions?

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## cathyn

Wave off.  Deleting /etc/asound.conf fixed everything, though I don't know why.

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