MX-17.1/MX-18.1: Replacing PulseAudio by ALSA's sound server – implications?

[dreamer]

If I dislike PulseAudio - it's because I have suffered for ten years - driving me to Windows 7 in the process. If I had been a smarter guy maybe I would have figured out how to use Ubuntu without PulseAudio, but it was much trickier than MX Linux. Therein lies the greatness of MX Linux.

MX Linux can cater to almost any user. Having PulseAudio by default is what the great majority expect. PulseAudio also brings some benefits in terms of easy configuration and ease of use.

I also consider PulseAudio "bugged" (in every sense of the word) - much like systemd. I'm more of an ideological guy, but taking the route MX Linux is taking is the smartest choice. With MX Linux you can have it your way.

antiX is the ideological distro and MX Linux is the inclusive distro - I think it's a good combination. MX Linux gets its base system from antiX and in return antiX users can probably use the vast majority of packages in MX repo if they wish. As a "lagging" MX Linux user I appreciate that MX repo packages are compiled with basic Stretch compatibility.

I appreciate these fluid boundaries between Debian, antiX and MX Linux. If you don't like MX Linux semi-rolling you can disable the MX repo and find yourself on "Debian/antiX stable" with browser updates from antiX repo.

If I can use MX Linux my way, why would I dislike that someone else uses MX Linux their way? Use systemd, Snaps whatever if you want to. Most of the "hate" these technologies receive stems from the perception that they are hurting existing technologies. MX Linux has found a way to let technologies coexist.

[MX-16_fan]

@dreamer:

(...) I also consider PulseAudio "bugged" (in every sense of the word) - much like systemd. (...) Most of the "hate" these technologies receive stems from the perception that they are hurting existing technologies. MX Linux has found a way to let technologies coexist.

In this case: not yet – currently you cannot remove the pulseaudio package without loosing mx-apps and mx-system-sounds. Tested on MX-17.1. Greetings, Joe

[dreamer]

In this case: not yet – currently you cannot remove the pulseaudio package without loosing mx-apps and mx-system-sounds. Tested on MX-17.1. Greetings, Joe

mx-system-sounds has a dependency on libcanberra-pulse. libcanberra-pulse has a dependency on pulseaudio.

Consider the other back-end:

mx-system-sounds has a dependency on libcanberra-gstreamer. libcanberra-gstreamer has a dependency on libgstreamer. libcanberra-gstreamer and libgstreamer do NOT have a dependency on gstreamer (only suggests).

When you pull in a pulse related library you pull in pulseaudio. When you pull in a gstreamer related library you don't pull in gstreamer. It seems impossible to make an application that supports PulseAudio without bringing PulseAudio with it. Bad packaging in Debian it seems. It's worse in Ubuntu of course.

mx-system-sounds needs to support PulseAudio so that it has a dependency on libcanberra-pulse is understandable.

[MX-16_fan]

@dreamer:

(...) mx-system-sounds has a dependency on libcanberra-pulse. libcanberra-pulse has a dependency on pulseaudio.

Consider the other back-end:

mx-system-sounds has a dependency on libcanberra-gstreamer. libcanberra-gstreamer has a dependency on libgstreamer. libcanberra-gstreamer and libgstreamer do NOT have a dependency on gstreamer (only suggests).

When you pull in a pulse related library you pull in pulseaudio. When you pull in a gstreamer related library you don't pull in gstreamer. It seems impossible to make an application that supports PulseAudio without bringing PulseAudio with it. Bad packaging in Debian it seems. It's worse in Ubuntu of course.

mx-system-sounds needs to support PulseAudio so that it has a dependency on libcanberra-pulse is understandable.

Thanks for that explanation. What you say fully explains to me the mx-system-sounds depencency, but what about mx-apps?


Greetings, Joe

[dolphin_oracle]

mx-apps is just a metapackage for all the mx-apps. It's safe to remove, the apps it pulls in should remain. It's being flagged for removal because it depends on mx-system-sounds.

[MX-16_fan]

@dreamer:

mx-system-sounds has a dependency on libcanberra-pulse. libcanberra-pulse has a dependency on pulseaudio. (...) mx-system-sounds has a dependency on libcanberra-gstreamer. libcanberra-gstreamer has a dependency on libgstreamer. (...) When you pull in a pulse related library you pull in pulseaudio. When you pull in a gstreamer related library you don't pull in gstreamer. It seems impossible to make an application that supports PulseAudio without bringing PulseAudio with it. Bad packaging in Debian it seems. It's worse in Ubuntu of course. (...)

Thanks for the explanation.

Do you think that someone should report this upstream as a flaw in packaging?

Maybe (I'm not sure) the problem is even more complex: According to http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/lib ... /#overview, the libcanberra API has been developed by the guy who, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PulseAudio, is the lead developer of PulseAudio (and, btw., according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennart_Poettering, has invented systemd), so basically I guess one might assume that libcanberra has intentionally been hard-wired to PulseAudio. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

Generally, I'd think that no piece of software should ever be hard-wired to any specific sound server, unless completely inevitable.

If you look at what happens if you try to uninstall "everything PulseAudio", it seems as if PulseAudio has already been implemented deeply into the Debian ecosphere, which is amazing to me, as the Debian people had once been so conscious about cleanliness in general architecture.

Obviously it's not yet too late remove this forced connection with resonable effort. However, this would probably have to be done soon.

A first step would be to offer MX Linux system sounds functionality without PulseAudio installed.


Greetings, Joe

[dolphin_oracle]

I changed the libcanberra-pulse from a depend to a recommend today for the MX19 builds based on your comment.

**edit** just did the same for mx17/18

[MX-16_fan]

@dolphin_oracle:

I changed the libcanberra-pulse from a depend to a recommend today for the MX19 builds based on your comment.

**edit** just did the same for mx17/18

That's great news. Thanks so much!

A (hopefully) small splash for our beloved aquatic mammal, but a giant step for a clean MX ocean !


Greetings, Joe

[rs55]

Here is my experiment:
- I uninstalled pulse and pavu and all pulse associated things.
- Important: libcanberra0 and libcanberra-GTK3-* programs seem to be necessary - so I had to reinstall those.
- I installed apulse
- changed call to firefox as follows: apulse firefox , chrome works as is, deadbeef works, VLC works.
- installed a pre-amp for alsa ( took some fiddling, this is optional but can raise the volume quite high on my thinkpad with the preamp)

Consequences: MX System Sounds was uninstalled in the process. I never use system sounds anyway - so no loss.
Ram usage went down 20-30 MB - minor
- Run my music player on pure alsa without any processing, sounds great.

Overall, Iam happy with this. I dont like software that tries to be too clever - and Pulse falls in that category - too much fiddling with setups, and if you set the volume to 150% , then use the hardware keys to reduce it a bit - it falls to 100% and then cannot raise it back etc etc. Too many idiosyncrasies for something simple.

All I need is sound in the browser and sound for my music player - through the speakers of through my DAC. Thats it. And with Alsa - everything now Just Works.

I dont have any complex sound setups or bluetooth etc - so other beware that this drastic surgery may affect you if you have other sound devices.

[MX-16_fan]

@rs55:

Here is my experiment:

Very interesting, @rs55. Thank you for sharing your test results with us.

- I uninstalled pulse and pavu and all pulse associated things.

I.e. set up the way that @dreamer and I have worked it out so far, with great help from @dolphin_oracle. As to your report, this has now worked in another (in any case: third,) setup (as once, before the degradation of Debian, it did with no issues whatsoever out-of-the-box.). Superb !

- Important: libcanberra0 and libcanberra-GTK3-* programs seem to be necessary - so I had to reinstall those.

(@rs55:) That is ugly.

@dolphin_oracle: Is there anything that could be done about those remaining libcanberra* dependencies?

- I installed apulse
- changed call to firefox as follows: apulse firefox , chrome works as is, deadbeef works, VLC works.

Sounds like a good idea, but could you (or someone else) tell us more about the connection between PulseAudio, apulse, and potential security- and general implications regarding further development architecture? Would be interesting to know what the price for that compatibility is.

- installed a pre-amp for alsa ( took some fiddling, this is optional but can raise the volume quite high on my thinkpad with the preamp)

Sounds like an excellent idea. However, you might wish to try and run a "sudo rm /var/lib/alsa/asound.state" (at your own risk), and reboot after that, and maybe (chance of 30% would be my estimation) you won't need the pre-amp afterwards any more.

- installed a pre-amp for alsa ( took some fiddling, this is optional but can raise the volume quite high on my thinkpad with the preamp)

Tẃo questions regading that very same thing:

1. What pre-amping application did you use for that?
2. Would you know how to increase the volume generated by any Firefox-based browser simply via about:config?

Consequences: MX System Sounds was uninstalled in the process. I never use system sounds anyway - so no loss.

Please see above. Thanks to dolphin_oracle's repackaging, there's no need to loose the system sounds any more. You might wish to try the new package.

Ram usage went down 20-30 MB - minor

Sounds good.

- Run my music player on pure alsa without any processing, sounds great.

Great! As with you, according to quite a few people, sound generally becomes great again once you remove PulseAudio.

Overall, Iam happy with this.

I dont like software that tries to be too clever - and Pulse falls in that category - too much fiddling with setups, and if you set the volume to 150% , then use the hardware keys to reduce it a bit - it falls to 100% and then cannot raise it back etc etc. Too many idiosyncrasies for something simple.

Fully correct, IMHO.

All I need is sound in the browser and sound for my music player - through the speakers of through my DAC. Thats it. And with Alsa - everything now Just Works.

A vast majority of Linux-on-a-Desktop users is likely to fully agree agree with you.

I dont have any complex sound setups or bluetooth etc - so other beware that this drastic surgery may affect you if you have other sound devices.

We'll keep working on documenting potential implications here in this thread, and try to remove roadblocks. Please stay stuned. Further input from you would most certainly be greatly appreciated.

In case you'd like to use Bluetooth, please have a look at this separate thread: https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=134&t=51892.


Best wishes,

and a nice weekend to all of you,


Joe