PulseAudio-17.0

#### Gaming Linux® From Scratch - Version 13.0

### Chapter 7. Audio

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# PulseAudio-17.0

## Introduction to PulseAudio

PulseAudio is a sound system for POSIX OSes, meaning that it is a proxy for sound applications. It allows you to do advanced operations on your sound data as it passes between your application and your hardware. Things like transferring the audio to a different machine, changing the sample format or channel count and mixing several sounds into one are easily achieved using a sound server.

### Important

For the lib32 installation instructions, they require new Meson cross files from MLFS, as `--libdir=/usr/lib32` has been moved to the cross files and no longer appear in the instructions. Install the new cross files so that 32-bit libraries don't get installed in `/usr/lib`.

- Download: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/pulseaudio/releases/pulseaudio-17.0.tar.xz

### PulseAudio Dependencies

Required
libsndfile-1.2.2
Recommended
alsa-lib-1.2.15.3, D-Bus-1.16.2, GLib-2.86.4, Speex-1.2.1, Systemd-259.1, and Xorg Libraries
Optional
Avahi, BlueZ, Doxygen (for documentation), fftw, GStreamer-Suite-1.28.1, GTK-3, libsamplerate, SBC (Bluetooth support), Valgrind, JACK, libasyncns, LIRC, ORC, soxr, TDB, and WebRTC AudioProcessing

## Installation of PulseAudio

Install PulseAudio by running the following commands:

    mkdir build &&
    cd    build &&

    meson setup --prefix=/usr       \
                --buildtype=release \
                -D database=gdbm    \
                -D doxygen=false    \
                -D bluez5=disabled  \
                -D tests=false      \
                .. &&

    ninja

Now, as the `root` user:

    ninja install

Running PulseAudio as a system-wide daemon is possible but not recommended. See https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Documentation/User/SystemWide/ for more information. While still as the `root` user, remove the D-Bus configuration file for the system wide daemon to avoid creating unnecessary system users and groups:

    rm /usr/share/dbus-1/system.d/pulseaudio-system.conf

## lib32 Installation of PulseAudio

Install lib32-PulseAudio by running the following commands:

    rm -rf * &&
    meson setup --prefix=/usr       \
                --buildtype=release \
                --cross-file=lib32  \
                -D database=gdbm    \
                -D doxygen=false    \
                -D bluez5=disabled  \
                -D tests=false      \
                .. &&

    ninja

Now, as the `root` user:

    DESTDIR=$PWD/DESTDIR ninja install    &&
    cp -vr DESTDIR/usr/lib32/* /usr/lib32 &&
    rm -rf DESTDIR                        &&
    ldconfig

## Command Explanations

### Note

Inspect `meson_options.txt` or `meson.options` for a full list of options.

`--buildtype=release`: Specify a buildtype suitable for stable releases of the package, as the default may produce unoptimized binaries.

`-D doxygen=false`: This allows the package to compile as Doxygen is not installed.

`-D bluez5=disabled`: This switch prevents a runtime error if dbus and SBC are both installed but BlueZ is not installed. Remove this if you have installed all three packages.

`-D tests=false`: This switch disables building tests as they require Check.

## Configuring PulseAudio

### Config Files

There are system wide configuration files: `/etc/pulse/daemon.conf`, `/etc/pulse/client.conf`, `/etc/pulse/default.pa`, and user configuration files with the same names in `~/.config/pulse`. User configuration files take precedence over system wide ones.

### Configuration Information

You may have to configure the audio system. You can start pulseaudio in command line mode using pulseaudio -C and then list various information and change settings. See man pulse-cli-syntax.

Furthermore, if this package was not built with Systemd-259.1, add any non-root users to the `audio` group as the `root` user:

    usermod -a -G audio <username>

If pulseaudio was working but you no-longer have sound, after checking for hardware issues (speakers or headphones not connected, external amplifier not connected) you may need to fix it.

One suggestion is to close the application, such as firefox where sound has stopped working, then run: pactl list short sinks followed by: pacmd set-default-sink <sink #> and then restart the application.

If that does not work, a more drastic approach often works. After closing the application, close pulseaudio, either using pulseaudio --kill or, if that fails, killall -KILL pulseaudio and then rm -rf ~/.config/pulse/* (and perhaps also rm -rf ~/.pulse/* if you have used a very old version of pulse on this machine), then run pulseaudio --verbose to restart it. If the daemon starts, restart the application. See man pulseaudio for more options.

## Contents

Installed Programs: pacat, pacmd, pactl, padsp, pamon (symlink to pacat), paplay (symlink to pacat), parec (symlink to pacat), parecord (symlink to pacat), qpaeq, pasuspender, pax11publish, pulseaudio, and start-pulseaudio-x11
Installed Libraries: libpulse, libpulse-mainloop-glib, libpulse-simple, libpulsecommon-17.0, libpulsecore-17.0, and libpulsedsp
Installed Directories: /etc/pulse, /usr/include/pulse, /usr/lib/cmake/PulseAudio, /usr/lib/{pulseaudio,pulse-17.0}, /usr/libexec/pulse, and /usr/share/pulseaudio

### Short Descriptions

pacat | plays back or records raw or encoded audio streams on a PulseAudio sound server
pacmd | is a tool used to reconfigure a PulseAudio sound server during runtime
pactl | is used to control a running PulseAudio sound server
padsp | is the PulseAudio OSS Wrapper
pamon | is a symbolic link to pacat
paplay | is used to play audio files on a PulseAudio sound server
parec | is a symbolic link to pacat
parecord | is a symbolic link to pacat
pasuspender | is a tool that can be used to tell a local PulseAudio sound server to temporarily suspend access to the audio devices, to allow other applications to access them directly
pax11publish | is the PulseAudio X11 Credential Utility
pa-info | is a shell script that prints various information relating to the Pulseaudio server currently in use
pulseaudio | is a networked low-latency sound server for Linux
qpaeq | is an equalizer interface for PulseAudio equalizer sinks (Requires fftw at build time)
start-pulseaudio-x11 | starts PulseAudio and registers it to the X11 session manager

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