From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1RY5EV-0004EX-GQ for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:19:35 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A9EF721C0FA; Wed, 7 Dec 2011 00:19:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ww0-f53.google.com (mail-ww0-f53.google.com [74.125.82.53]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 09D4421C0E4 for ; Wed, 7 Dec 2011 00:16:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wgbds1 with SMTP id ds1so7283571wgb.10 for ; Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:16:52 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id:subject:to :content-type; bh=2JeCt4aQeIs7ITGjBfSOu9GwW1lWzld5WYeiCuvS0sA=; b=m4Q/ZuglItgyLEd3AfppBfu6SnWrLt9nVsbpz3xPdmWFWGeAvwHThq1A9iX7csbpcO 8581qNDk13z0W0Wfy6BA75+6zaSeFCzGiMaSEytUgMEuRLlRivGFzkilkfWng7CLatNh AgoFaIKaz7Kql5TJk6pEdDhLDyJvFrejJJqqQ= Received: by 10.180.7.161 with SMTP id k1mr20653925wia.23.1323217012227; Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:16:52 -0800 (PST) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.180.105.39 with HTTP; Tue, 6 Dec 2011 16:16:31 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: From: =?UTF-8?Q?Claudio_Roberto_Fran=C3=A7a_Pereira?= Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 22:16:31 -0200 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: no sound on upgraded Firefox from 7 to 8 - using pulse audio To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Archives-Salt: 6e4e326b-815c-45a2-8714-eadb628d147a X-Archives-Hash: 5e3901bcdd53eb49b8ffdd0ed2b4f5ff The idea behind pulseaudio is live switching of streams. ALSA is great if you have only one audio card, but as soon as you introduce a bluetooth headset, a headphone, a HDMI display with sound output, ALSA can't handle real time stream redirection. Sure, you can use scripts to toggle .asoundrc profiles, but even then you'll need to restart the softwares that produce audio. Here I have a HDMI display (an hdtv) and a headphone. I mostly send my audio to my tv, but if I'm using the computer late at night, or if I'm to listen to high volume music, I'd switch the affecting streams to my headphone, without the need to mess with sound configuration files and to restart my sound engine. PulseAudio is to audio what X.org is to video: stream mixing software.