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/

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-alsamixer

restart 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-alsamixer

And something to keep gnome-alsamixer within easy reach, provided by AllTray:

$ sudo apt-get install alltray

Now, 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.