PulseAudio & !PulseAudio in KDEMM (was: Re: Phonon Sample Cache)

[Ian Monroe]

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 12:03, Harald Sitter <sitter at kde.org> wrote:
> On Monday 29 August 2011 10:04:07 Ian Monroe wrote:
>> 2011/8/29 Michael Pyne <mpyne at kde.org>:
>> > On Saturday, August 27, 2011 13:56:03 Colin Guthrie wrote:
>> >> libcanberra does pulse, alsa, gstreamer and OSS. The plan would be to
>> >> use pulse by default on most linux systems and write an additional
>> >> phonon backend for canberra for those users who do not want to use
>> >> pulse
>> >> (which is an reducing minority but an annoying vocal one, so needs to
>> >> be
>> >> supported). If written, this phonon backend would be committed
>> >> upstream.
>> >
>> > I don't use PulseAudio and I'm on Linux. I do so for the same reason
>> > that I used aKode on KDE 3.5 instead of aRts. It's funny that it's not
>> > considered completely insane for Linux users to use lightweight
>> > programs in other instances where an entire order-of-magnitude more
>> > features is not desired (e.g. lighttpd vs. httpd, the various 'light'
>> > window managers, etc.). What is it exactly about not using PA when I
>> > don't need positional audio or network sound streaming over a home
>> > network that I don't have that makes *me* the stick in the mud?
>> >
>> > I'd like to think I'd been a completely silent minority... it's looking
>> > as if I'll need to change that soon.
>>
>> Why use pulseaudio? Check out the subject line of this thread...
>>
>> Anyways this is a pretty straightforward case where treating the "no
>> pulseaudio" as an error-case rather then a normal use-case makes loads
>> of stuff much easier. Like currently we have our own hardware handling
>> code in parallel with pulseaudio and its just not really necessary
>> anymore.
>
> Speaking with a broader kdemm POV here...
>
> Just to make this perfectly clear: non-PA setups are supported an probably
> always will be, BUT they will not receive the same amount of attention (thus
> integration) because of what Ian highlighted.

tl;dr version of harald's email: the phonon stuff don't work,
pulseaudio does, let's use it.