KDE4 Phonon and PulseAudio

[hihihi]

markbuntu's post was for KDE 4.1.
As of KDE 4.2 (available in the backports), the only thing needed to get PulseAudio working within KDE is making "pulse-session" run before KDE launches using the following command in a terminal:

cp /usr/bin/pulse-session ~/.kde/env/pulse-session.sh

Then after restarting KDE, Phonon devices(not just the "PulseAudio" device) will map to PulseAudio devices instead of ALSA devices.

i am also on kde4.2 and making autostart pulseaudio -D did the whole trick.
i ask myself if this is not good enough?
for now everything is working again that wasnt before.

[Syniurge]

i am also on kde4.2 and making autostart pulseaudio -D did the whole trick.
i ask myself if this is not good enough?
for now everything is working again that wasnt before.

The difference is that the scripts located in ~/.kde/env/ run before Phonon initialization, early enough to play the startup sound.
That and I had some problems when PulseAudio was autostarted with KDE (PulseAudio not getting detected by Phonon for ex.).

[markbuntu]

Well, I just tried the script and disabled the autostart commands it seems to make no difference with KDE4.1. Startup and shutdown sounds play and there is still no pulse device in system settings/sound but selecting default directs the sound to pulse.

System Settings/Advanced/Autostart shows the autostart commands in Desktop file and the script in Script file. The script is run on Pre-KDE startup so prehaps this is an advantage that is not available from using autostart. A close investigation into the KDE init process may be warranted to find which is actually better or if this is just a difference without distinction.

[Syniurge]

Well, I just tried the script and disabled the autostart commands it seems to make no difference with KDE4.1. Startup and shutdown sounds play and there is still no pulse device in system settings/sound but selecting default directs the sound to pulse.

System Settings/Advanced/Autostart shows the autostart commands in Desktop file and the script in Script file. The script is run on Pre-KDE startup so prehaps this is an advantage that is not available from using autostart. A close investigation into the KDE init process may be warranted to find which is actually better or if this is just a difference without distinction.

To clarify, starting from KDE 4.2 Phonon tries to map ALL the devices in system settings/sound to PulseAudio devices. Autostarting PulseAudio instead of using .kde/env sometimes causes Phonon not detecting PulseAudio and reverting to ALSA devices instead.

[markbuntu]

To clarify, starting from KDE 4.2 Phonon tries to map ALL the devices in system settings/sound to PulseAudio devices. Autostarting PulseAudio instead of using .kde/env sometimes causes Phonon not detecting PulseAudio and reverting to ALSA devices instead.

Well, that makes sense. But we still do not know why pulse does not appear in KDE4.1 even with the script. I could swear I saw pulse in there when I first installed KDE4.1 in Intrepid but then after some update it was no longer there.....

[hyper_ch]

well, this seems not to be working for me on KDE 4.2.2 on jaunty 64bit. In System Settings / Multimedia I have an Intel and PulseAudio entry. The Intel one works fine (plays music) the PulseAudio one doesn't.

I used that ~/.kde/env approach.

[markbuntu]

well, this seems not to be working for me on KDE 4.2.2 on jaunty 64bit. In System Settings / Multimedia I have an Intel and PulseAudio entry. The Intel one works fine (plays music) the PulseAudio one doesn't.

I used that ~/.kde/env approach.

Getting pulse to work with KDE is also dependent on having pulse set up properly and using the pulse volume control to direct the applications.

[hyper_ch]

actually ones I updated pulseaudio with the PPA repos it started working now.

[srbaldomero]

Hello, I have kubuntu 9.04 64bits and after following the instructions (basically adding the autostart command) I didn't get any progress at all.

Since I am not sure if I am missing some pulseaudio package (and I do not want to install anything I do not need), I attach some screenshots from KpackageKit and Adept:







I also attach my multimedia configuration



And the problem I get after trying to reproduce a sound in amarok



Hopefully you can help me with this really annoying problem, which seems to be quite common though.

Thanks a lot!

[markbuntu]

Do you have the pulsaudio volume control?
(those screenshots were very fuzzy and hard to see)
If you do open that up and see what is going on. Also read the link in the OP for setting up pulseaudio.