how is pulseaudio supposed to work?

[Richi Plana]

On Mon, 2007-12-17 at 17:11 +0100, Olivier Galibert wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 16, 2007 at 12:30:21PM -0600, Callum Lerwick wrote:
> > No no no. The Pulseaudio library should take care of starting the damn
> > daemon. Like esd did.
> 
> Am I the only one feeling a certain unease at the idea of simple sound
> playing requiring a library which does fork+exec, ipc, network
> sockets, etc?  Of course I already have this unease with alsa, but it
> looks like I'm the only one who cares.

First of all, a library already exists and is being used. It's the
pulseaudio libraries which applications using pulse are likely to use
and link against. I think even the PA alsa emulation module uses it, so
that any attempt by any app linking against it should be able to start
the daemon when necessary.

Just remember that a fork+exec is already done. Currently by a startup
script. What makes one uneasy with moving it into the lib?

And lest we forget, the important thing is having apps trigger the
daemon startup, which doesn't necessarily mean incorporating it into the
library. There are other means. I'm just wondering at the unease you
feel for incorporating it into a lib. (It's not like adding device
microcode-loading software into the kernel)
--

Richi Plana