PulseAudio was supposed to cure desktop audio in Linux. But for many Ubuntu users it has been a vexation. Carla Schroder shows us how to turn it on and off so that it runs when we want it to, not when it wants to.

I've very pleased to announce that my work on Phonon to integrate support for PulseAudio has now been committed to trunk and will form part of KDE 4.4

Ardour and JACK developer Paul Davis looked at audio from mostly the professional audio perspective, while PulseAudio developer Lennart Poettering, unsurprisingly, discussed desktop audio.

Some time ago, I've shown different methods of using scripts and configuration files to get Bluetooth A2DP audio working properly. But that's a problem: it requires setup. Ideally this should all happen automatically right when the headphones are paired.

The Developers and MOTUs for Ubuntu have seen fit to add PulseAudio to the audio stack. And I do mean add it to the stack. It sits on top of Alsa and attempts to manage the way people use their audio. And yes, it sits on top of Alsa, not replaces it.

Some time ago in the #rapache-devel channel Jason, which is the author of many of the nice features found in Rapache, came up with the idea of leveraging PulseAudio and do something with it. Well.. that was not a bad idea. I mean, until today PulseAudio brought lots of brokeness to Ubuntu (not to say Fedora) users but .. can you say to have enjoyed any benefit from it ? Even one, I mean.

One of the great new features in Fedora 8 is the inclusion of the PulseAudio sound server. PulseAudio allows multiple streams of audio to be played at once, eliminating the worry of having your sound card locked up by another running program. There's also a handy volume control applet that will let you set the volume of each audio stream independently. That's right folks, listen to your MP3s, watch (and listen!) to a YouTube video, and voice chat with your IM buddies, all at the same time and with independent control over each program's volume. Setting up PulseAudio is very easy. Read on for instructions.

Mandriva has announced that future releases of Mandriva Linux will use PulseAudio as the default sound server for all desktops.