Ubuntu

Ubuntu lucid dismay - pulseadio AGAIN , why ship it ?

Asked by Mark_uk

Again I downloaded and installed Ubuntu Lucid ISO drom Ubuntu server today Mar 11 2010
and again, still pulseaudio is broken IMO.
as from Intrepid onwards, upto and including Lucid test, i can only use the PC
for SKYPE by completely removing Pulseaudio.
I have been using Linux since redhat 5.0 early days, and pulseaudio in its present form is the biggest threat
in Linux since we first got audio, i was there when we did.
- so why even think of shipping a distro with a broken sound server ? the quality is in most cases i see just plain bad,
quality, it was great in 8:04 and Kubuntu always, Phonon is not half as buggy or complex. and the UI is simple and logical.
This isn't skype's problem, nor is it confined just to Ubuntu, but for the average user, which Ubuntu hopes to aim at, a OS with broken audio is a non starter when trying to recommend the virtues of GNU/Linux. as my job entails i cannot recommend Ubuntu or any out of the box Gnome based Linux distro. KDE 4x s sound server phonon is way ahead.
so why even ship with Pulseaudio ? 0 for some notional, next-gen features when the critical base system is not ready.
sorry. Ubuntu must break the chain, be bold and take the lead and ditch pulseaudio.
sure ALSA was a mess, but it WORKED, though and has had, more importantly many years of testing.
new code is NOT automatically good code, Jack, foe example is a more mature code base and
pulse should NEVER be included in a LTS unless it is a proven success. it hasn't.
I Hope UBUNTU can fix and do simplify their pulseaudio implementation, but i dont think they will,
recompiling drivers, installing missing pulseaudio apps, messy rollback to ALSA just is not good enough for first time users,
and Kubuntu or Xubuntu can only be solidly recommended, therefore i disagree with Gnome and Pulseaudio.

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Kristopher Ives (krisives) said : 		#1

PulseAudio is getting better, and I'm someone who's hated it from the start, but we're actually seeing the benefits of the package now, since there is support in the frontend for doing things like per-application volume, etc.

Ubuntu probably made the quick-switch to PA because they can control it's code base easier, compared to the upstream/existing systems (ALSA, OSS, etc.)

Also, since your rant is badly formatted it's hard to read. Obviously you're capable of making the changes to stop using PA, but you're concerned about new users switching to Ubuntu. In that case you could always make a PPA that users can use to accomplish this, as I did when I disagreed with recent changes Rhythmbox made (https://launchpad.net/~kris-santiance/+archive/oldrb)

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Mark_uk (dragothic) said : 		#2

Apologies for the bad formatting Kristopher, as i am partially sighted, it can be tricky to get these things perfect.especially late at night. i agree that a PPA would help, but the real point is it should mostly work 'out of the box' and new users wouldn't necessarily know what a PPA is, let alone how to install and use it, and their initial reaction, quite understandably, is that you need to " mess about " just to get it to work, and they will likely just move on, and thats the point. we're not talking about a single application, we're talking about audio, its a crucial system ingredient, and needs to be rock solid and proven, or just dont ship it.
its a shame, as Ubuntu have got many things right....

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