replace pulseaudio with alsa?

[///]

After got a USB headset and set it up I had a few audio problems with certain programs. On an IRC channel for one of those programs I was told that the problem was pulseaudio.

Now I'm trying to replace pulseaudio with alsa but all of the information I've seen so far is outdated and doesn't work. Can I please have some help on this?

[xenopeek]

PulseAudio runs on top of ALSA, so ALSA is already installed. I don't think PulseAudio is the problem... A lot of people seem to hold a grudge from the early days of PulseAudio, when it was still being developed. There is a lot of FUD out there, but PulseAudio is a mature sound server these days and without it only one application at a time can output sound and a lot of applications will remain mute altogether.

Anyway, if you do want to try it, first disable PulseAudio from automatically restarting:

Code: Select all

echo "autospawn = no" | sudo tee -a /etc/pulse/client.conf

Then stop PulseAudio:

Code: Select all

pulseaudio -k

Then see if that helps. If not, you can enable PulseAudio automatically restarting again by doing "gksudo gedit /etc/pulse/client.conf" and remove the last line "autospawn = no".

[///]

Hmm, that doesn't seem to fix the problem. I'll make a seperate thread asking for possible solutions.

Thanks for your help, anyway.

[Sonja]

I'm having problems using my headset in Skype too. Let me know what worked for you.

[3fRI]

I'm not a fan of pulse audio. Here's the fix for get sound to work--especially headphones--either via synaptic package or software manager, install gnome-alsamixer and then go to the app and unmute the muted speakers. Also, make sure that they the muted devices stay unmuted. For the life of me, I don't understand why this is an ongoing issue in Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distros, but it's been going on long enough for me to consider looking more seriously at non-Ubuntu distros.

[Sonja]

In the end I uninstalled pulseaudio. I then had to reboot (as opposed to just logout). I must be on pure ALSA now, and it works just as I want. Skype also gave me the option to set my headset as the device.