Mysteries of sound in Fedora-9

[Bill Davidsen]

Antonio Olivares wrote:
> --- Timothy Murphy <gayleard at eircom.net> wrote:
> 
>> I'm finding it very difficult to understand
>> the Sound setup in Fedora-9 with KDE.
>>
>> Previously, sound did not work at all when I
>> re-booted.
>> But after some unrecorded sequence of clicks
>> on f=>Applications=>Multimedia=>Sound Mixer
>> it suddenly started working.
>>
>> Today, I wondered if the problem was something to do
>> with pulseaudio, so I tried killing this and
>> re-starting it.
>> But I got the more or less incomprehensible error
>> message below:
>> ----------------------------------
>> [tim at elizabeth ~]$ sudo killall pulseaudio
>> [tim at elizabeth ~]$ sudo pulseaudio -D
>> W: main.c: This program is not intended to be run as
>> root (unless --system
>> is specified).
>> [tim at elizabeth ~]$ pulseaudio -D
>> N: main.c: Called SUID root and
>> real-time/high-priority scheduling was
>> requested in the configuration. However, we lack the
>> necessary priviliges:
>> N: main.c: We are not in group 'pulse-rt' and
>> PolicyKit refuse to grant us
>> priviliges. Dropping SUID again.
>> N: main.c: For enabling real-time scheduling please
>> acquire the appropriate
>> PolicyKit priviliges, or become a member of
>> 'pulse-rt', or increase the
>> RLIMIT_NICE/RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limits for this
>> user.
>> ----------------------------------
>>
>> So I added myself to the pulse-rt entry in
>> /etc/group with vigr
>> (and the shadow file with vigr -S).
>> Then I pressed ctrl-alt-backspace and logged in
>> again.
>>
>> Now I get sound, but it is very quiet,
>> although every slider that I can see is pushed to
>> the maximum.
>> Also the loudspeaker in the panel has disappeared.
>> I thought this was the icon for Sound Mixer,
>> but I find this is not so;
>> when I right click on Sound Mixer and add the icon
>> to the panel
>> it is quite different.
>>
>> Surely I cannot be the only person having these
>> problems
>> with Sound under Fedora-9?
>> I should say that this is on an IBM ThinkPad T23.
>>
>> Multimedia and in particular Sound is easily the
>> weakest chain
>> in Fedora, and has been for several versions of
>> Fedora.
>> The whole Sound system is absurdly complicated,
>> and disentangling it is like eating spaghetti.
>>
>> I'd like to say to the Fedora and KDE sound teams,
>> "Please don't add or subtract anything
>> until you have properly documented what is already
>> there.
>> Try adding some test files, and check that your
>> error messages
>> are comprehensible, with advice on what steps to
>> take."
>>
>> -- 
>> fedora-list mailing list
>> fedora-list at redhat.com
>> To unsubscribe:
>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>>
> 
> I have seen many warnings that "**** so so package is
> unavailable and will not be used fallback to other *?"
> and sound works.  I still hear sound, I logout and log
> back and I see the same warnings :(  I guess I am
> guessed to it.  I type 
> $ alsamixer 
> and I see a slider with only pulseaudio in some cases,
> and in others I see an error that pulseaudio ....?
> 
> KDE used arts sound system, still uses it?  The
> integration of pulseaudio on it caused a great deal of
> frustrations --> see Fedora 8 in case you need to be
> refreshed.  It is working its way up and still not
> there yet :( "FOR ALL USERS".   Other distros have
> also included pulseaudio, Ubuntu, Mandriva, but not
> all of them.  The sound configuring tool has been
> removed from Fedora  *** cut + pasted from release
> notes ***
> 
> 8.1. Sound Card Utility
>  
>  The system-config-soundcard utility has been removed,
> due to numerous legacy design and implementation
> issues. Modern technologies, including udev and the
> HAL, have made certain sound cards work out of the
> box. Any sound card not working out of the box should
> be reported as a bug. Preferences can still be
> fine-tuned within the desktop environment, using,
> among others, the PulseAudio tools.
> 
> and some users are having difficulties getting sound
> to work, maybe their sound cards are not supported :(
> and it is not Fedora's fault or maybe sound used to
> work before and now it does not :(.  
> 
If the hardware was supported in FC[45678] and worked, then if it's not 
supported in FC9, how is it not Fedora's fault? That's not a complaint, 
I just don't see how the fault can lie elsewhere, if the Fedora team 
didn't break sound, who did, Bill Gates?

I have a four solution to sound and FC9, (1) does this system need sound 
badly enough to justify the effort of getting it working? (2) Does sound 
work if I rip PulseAudio and all dependencies out forever (usually yes)? 
(3) Does the need justify hours of diddling PA and probably installing a 
new sound card? Finally (4) how long does it take to go back to FC8 or 
install CentOS? I have used them all, in that order.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot