how is pulseaudio supposed to work?

[Les Mikesell]

Robin Norwood wrote:
>>
>> I know that some people want to continue playback when they switch to
>> a different session. However, I do not believe that this should be the
>> default. Maybe we will add support for this in a later version
>> somehow, but I do believe the right approach is to make sure that
>> inactive sessions cannot spy on the user who's active on the seat.
> 
> Especially since the controls for the music playback are in the other
> session.  The use case that I run into with F7 is:
> 
> o Offspring #1 starts Battle For Wesnoth as his user.
> o Offspring #2 takes over the computer, switches to his own user, and
>   wants to play some other game.
> 
> For F7, the Wesnothy music keeps playing, and, to turn it off, the
> computer needs to switch back to Offspring #1's account, log in, and
> close his game.  Then Offspring #2 can have sound.
> 
> This sucks.  I haven't installed F8 on The Offsprings computer yet, (I
> know, I know), but from what I understand, Pulseaudio should fix this
> very nicely.

And now for the opposite point of point of view...  I find it very 
disturbing that if I have itunes on a mac playing a playlist with the 
output going to a receiver/speakers for the room, it is rudely 
interrupted if my wife wants to check her email.

> It would be just as bad if I were playing music.  If a song I really
> hate comes up, and I don't have Offspring #1's password, there's no way
> to skip it.

Errr, if you don't like a song, don't schedule it to be played.

> Terrible.  I really can't understand how anyone would want
> the default behavior to be different.
> 
> When some users might want audio from one user to keep playing as logged
> into another user, it sounds like they have to do some manual tweaks.
> No big deal.

I can understand a system that has barely outgrown single-user concepts 
or something designed as a toy for kids that don't know enough to clean 
up after themselves making abrupt decisions based on guesswork about 
what you might sometimes want.  I don't understand it as default 
behavior for a system that is otherwise elegant in multi-user, 
multi-tasking operation and doing what you tell it to do.  If I want it 
to to stop playing music that I've started, I'll tell it to, thank you.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com