1 Jun
2021
1 Jun
'21
9:31 a.m.
On Tuesday 01 June 2021 01:08:15 deloptes wrote:
William Morder via tde-users wrote:
I don't use sound in any browser, ever. If I want music or a video, I download
it, and listen/watch it on a media player. Also I do not use Bluetooth for
anything at all.
No purist here, good sir! I like whatever works;
whatever works better,
that will do. But I also like to feel that I am in control of my own
system. Whenever pulseaudio no longer bothers me by taking over my sound
system, then I might leave it there.
If everything just worked, and I felt in control of my own system, then I
would probably still be running Windoze or the rotten Apple. It isn't
that I set out to be "pure" with some preconceived notion; it just turns
out that the things that bother me tend to fall predictably into the same
few categories.
At some point in the future, I may change my mind on this or that;
otherwise, I will die and at last be freed from these infernal machines.
IMO it is much harder to make things work without pulseaudio than with. I
have the same mindset as you do and I found out that reading pulseaudio
documentation and finding out why things do not work helped me a lot.
Few years ago I cam to the conclusion (it was PA 10 or 11) that the version
was very buggy, but developers fixed the issues in v12. I compiled v12
myself and see all my problems were gone. Meanwhile with buster and PA v12
all is fine (Except some minors around bluetooth). Now I hear v15 is on the
horizon, so you can imagine developers are not sleeping.
Regarding PA taking control over your sound system. This is exactly how it
should work to benefit from PA. Let it go and enjoy. I am not advocating
for PA. I simply know it works just fine.
We had also few discussions on the dev list with Michele regarding kmix. It
needs some adjustments, but it is not possible to do them right now.
Michele did some improvements based on the patches one other guy (I am
sorry I forgot the name) proposed. So for myself I found out the best is to
use the custom setting for the master channel on the pulseaudio mixer set
as default (sorry for the cyrillic) and for the fine tunning I use the ALSA
mixer and pavucontrol. pavucontrol can control the individual volume of
specific application (firefox, audio player etc), which kimix still can
not. pavucontrol can also control how Bluetooth (mobile phone) is handled
by the audio system.
It indeed depends on the use cases, but more complex use cases require more
complex tools and I do not see a chance a purist can do them. In fact what
I see are advises based on 5y old experience with PA (perhaps version 10 or
earlier), which lead to even bigger issues and end up in loop of errors.
You seem to allude to "problems" (I don't know if that's the right word)
that
are not obvious, or which I haven't yet experienced. I would be interested to
know more, for future reference. As I say, alsa serves my needs at the
moment, but I could change my mind. I am open to being convinced.
Of course the machine and the choice is yours.
I know that you guys are not the youngest and hope I could help with
sharing my experience.
Well, just from the glance at your screenshot, that is basically what I see in
Kmix with pulseaudio as the soundcard. And if that's what you want, it's
fine, but I like to see all the controls available.
As an occasional working musician, I like to play around with all the
possibilities of channels; for me, Kmix and alsamixer show me the information
that I want.
And for recording, of course, I use audacity, which again I find (for my own
needs) works best with alsa.
I do not cling to fixed opinions, nor am I fearful of change; but I do want my
machines to do what I want. Otherwise, it gets in the way of what I really
want to be doing. My machine is supposed to be a tool that facilitates what I
am doing. Ideally I would like to just have various presets already
configured, so that I can just push a button and start recording - sort of
like it used to be back in the good old days.
And while I may be an oldster, it's true, I am a young oldster. Most people my
age, and many who are 20 years younger, would have a hard time keeping up
with me. (But only if I have had my sleep, and some coffee, and a few hours
to ease into the day, which usually begins sometime in the afternoon. And
then, once I get myself together ... we're off!)
;-)
Bill