PulseAudio oddity

[Andrew Kenton Mitchell]

I have a series of Fedora 11 audio servers with PCI Creative Labs CA0106 
Soundblaster sound cards.  Those with the following packages work fine 
and the PulseAudio server recognizes the SoundBlaster device.

pulseaudio-libs-glib2-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586
pulseaudio-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586
pulseaudio-module-jack-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586
pulseaudio-esound-compat-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586
pulseaudio-libs-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586
pulseaudio-libs-zeroconf-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586
pulseaudio-module-zeroconf-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586
pulseaudio-module-gconf-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586
pulseaudio-utils-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586
pulseaudio-module-x11-0.9.15-11.fc11.i586

Those with the following packages did not work.  PulseAudio server sees 
a 'Null Audio' device.

pulseaudio.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11
pulseaudio-esound-compat.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11
pulseaudio-libs.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11
pulseaudio-libs-glib2.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11
pulseaudio-libs-zeroconf.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11
pulseaudio-module-gconf.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11
pulseaudio-module-jack.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11
pulseaudio-module-x11.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11
pulseaudio-module-zeroconf.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11
pulseaudio-utils.i586 0:0.9.15-14.fc11

I was eventually able to support 0:0.9.15-14.fc11 by modifying my 
/etc/pulse/default.pa as follows:

[root at zeus ~]# diff /etc/pulse/default.pa /etc/pulse/default.pa-2009-06-21
35,39d34
< load-module module-card-restore
<
< ### Automatically augment property information from .desktop files
< ### stored in /usr/share/application
< load-module module-augment-properties
53c48,50
< load-module module-hal-detect
---
 > #load-module module-hal-detect
 > load-module module-hal-detect tsched=0
 >
61,63c58,60
< .ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
< load-module module-bluetooth-discover
< .endif
---
 > #.ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
 > #load-module module-bluetooth-discover
 > #.endif
84,92d80
< ### Load additional modules from GConf settings. This can be 
configured with the paprefs tool.
< ### Please keep in mind that the modules configured by paprefs might 
conflict with manually
< ### loaded modules.
< .ifexists module-gconf.so
< .nofail
< load-module module-gconf
< .fail
< .endif
<
113,114c101,108
< ### Cork music streams when a phone stream is active
< load-module module-cork-music-on-phone
---
 > ### Load additional modules from GConf settings. This can be 
configured with the paprefs tool.
 > ### Please keep in mind that the modules configured by paprefs might 
conflict with manually
 > ### loaded modules.
 > .ifexists module-gconf.so
 > .nofail
 > load-module module-gconf
 > .fail
 > .endif

Sound works fine now.  Explainablly the above changes seem to have (for 
reasons I do not understand) caused the following error in the Intel CPU 
microcode service.

Applying Intel CPU microcode update: [  OK  ]
/etc/rc3.d/S06cpuspeed: line 169: [: argument expected
Starting cpuspeed: [  OK  ]

if you look at /etc/rc3.d/S06cpuspeed: line 169:

(169)        if [ -d ${cpu0freqd} -a -n ${GOVERNOR} ]; then
(170)          echo -n "Enabling p4-clockmod driver (passive cooling 
only): "
(171)          success; echo
(172)          return 0
(173)        else
(174)          /sbin/modprobe -r p4-clockmod 2> /dev/null
(175)        fi

For the life of me I can't explain how these issues are related.  
However, a downgrade to PulseAudio 0.9.15-11.fc11 eliminates the issue 
with Intel CPU microcode update and audio continues working.

Does anybody see how or why these may be connected?

Thanks,

Andrew