No audio in GDM -- A severe a11y problem

Andrew Farris lordmorgul at gmail.com
Wed Apr 2 22:45:55 UTC 2008


Janina Sajka wrote:
> 've successfully upgraded two machines from F-8 to the F-9 beta. A diff
> against my old /etc/gdm/custom.conf indicates Anaconda didn't touch that fil. Even after disabling pulseaudio, however, I am NOT getting audio out of GDM--snipet from custom.conf follows.
> 
> Please note this presents a serious a11y issue, as those of us unable to
> use display screens now have no indication when we might login to the
> desktop. The audio I dinciate doesn't play, and there is no beep when
> backspacing in the Login and Password fields.,
..snip..
> PS: It's a corollary issue, but preventing all audio before completion
> of gdm login presents a serious a11y issue. In addition to the above
> noted problem with this approach, there are significant use cases for
> console audio which may, or may not, be logged in before the gui.
> Indeed, some may never login on the gui. In a11y that would include
> users of speakup, emacspeak, and brltty among others.
> 
> I have yet to play with pulseaudio as a system daemon to see if that
> resolves the problem of console audio, but having no audio until a login
> is successful as the default circumstance doesn't make Fedora an a11y
> friendly OS.

As another (relatively small) issue of this same problem, the logoff sound is 
cut short and does not completely play due to access to the sound device 
dropping off too quickly.  Either the logoff sound needs to be played without 
pulse, or pulse needs to be started by GDM as well (a GDM pulse daemon) and the 
logoff sound actually gets played by that daemon not the user logging off?

If GDM had its own pulse daemon running it may be that a system-wide daemon 
isn't necessary, the login screen would have sound, the user would have sound 
once logged in.  I wonder if its possible for GDM to run a pulse daemon of its own?

-- 
Andrew Farris <lordmorgul at gmail.com> www.lordmorgul.net
  gpg 0x8300BF29 fingerprint 071D FFE0 4CBC 13FC 7DEB  5BD5 5F89 8E1B 8300 BF29
  revoked key 0xC99B1DF3 no longer used
No one now has, and no one will ever again get, the big picture. - Daniel Geer
----                                                                       ----




More information about the fedora-test-list mailing list