PulseAudio

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PulseAudio, previously known as Polypaudio, is a sound server for POSIX and WIN32 systems. It is a drop in replacement for the ESD sound server with much better latency, mixing/re-sampling quality and overall architecture.

PulseAudio Volume Control (pavucontrol) is a simple GTK+ based volume control tool (mixer) for the PulseAudio sound server. In contrast to classic mixer tools this one allows you to control both the volume of hardware devices and of each playback stream separately. It also allows you to redirect a playback stream to another output device without interrupting playback.

 

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pavucontrol

The volume control "configure" on Ubuntu and Mint is NOT the same as PulseAudio pavucontrol. You will NOT see a Configuration tab on the standard volume control mixer. Install pavucontrol for the real deal. 

sudo apt install pavucontrol

Distribution Specific

Fedora

PulseAudio became the standard audio system in Fedora 8, but at the time it is buggy and crashed from time to time for no apparent reason. Or, sometimes it works great without any problems. Maybe it's not so bad.

Debian

Want to install PulseAudio mixer on Debian? 

apt-get install pavucontrol

Ubuntu

A sound server is basically a proxy for your 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.

Pulseaudio is already installed by default on most Ubuntu flavors, including Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu.

For Ubuntu environments that use pulseaudio, Ubuntu has its own custom sound indicator that will allow you to select the preferred device and control the volume of each application. If you would prefer to try pulseaudio's generic control GUI, install the pavucontrol package and launch it with terminal command: 

pavucontrol

source: ubuntu wiki: PulseAudio

Tips and Tricks

Bridge HDMI and analog audio output

Updated: The easiest way to accomplish this on modern Ubuntu/Mint (at least 18.3 and up) is to use a utility called paprefs aka PulseAudio Preferences.

You won't find the ability to enable simultaneous output in the default Pulseaudio sound controls for any desktop environment.

Install PulseAudio Preferences 

sudo apt install paprefs

Run the software paprefs aka PulseAudio Preferences 

paprefs

There will only be one item there, Add virtual output device and you need to Check the box. Now refresh Pulseaudio

older information:

How to stop and start the Pulse Audio Service

With systemd PulseAudio is controlled by systemctl and if you kill PulseAudio it will be restarted automatically by systemctl. To suspend the service, stopping PulseAudio do: 

systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.socket
systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.service

To start it again, you can use: 

systemctl --user start pulseaudio.socket
systemctl --user start pulseaudio.service

Temporarily suspend PulseAudio

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 access them directly. pasuspender will suspend access to the audio devices, fork a child process, and when the child process terminates, resume access again.

Example environment without PulseAudio without stopping the service 

pasuspender bash

Troubleshoot

PulseAudio does not get along well with KDE

pulseaudio-core-libs-0.9.8-5.fc8
pulseaudio-module-gconf-0.9.8-5.fc8
pulseaudio-utils-0.9.8-5.fc8
pulseaudio-0.9.8-5.fc8
pulseaudio-module-x11-0.9.8-5.fc8
pulseaudio-esound-compat-0.9.8-5.fc8
alsa-plugins-pulseaudio-1.0.15-3.fc8.1
pulseaudio-libs-0.9.8-5.fc8
akode-pulseaudio-2.0.2-4.fc8
kde-settings-pulseaudio-3.5-38.fc8
pulseaudio-libs-glib2-0.9.8-5.fc8

esdcompat: esdcompat is a compatibility script that takes the same arguments as the ESD sound daemon esd(1), but uses them to start a the PulseAudio sound server with the appropriate parameters

PULSEAUDIO: Unable to connect: Connection refused 

Playing WAVE '/usr/share/system-config-soundcard/sound-sample.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Stereo
*** PULSEAUDIO: Unable to connect: Connection refused

aplay -L
amixer
cat /proc/asound/version
cat /etc/asound.conf
lspci -v |grep -iC 10 audio
lsmod |grep snd

Try this: (THIS WORKED) A viable work around to get rid of pulseaudio piece o crap

rename pulse-default.conf in /etc/alsa to somethin else. (This file makes pulseaudio the default device for sound for alsa) run /sbin/alsactl restore 

cd /etc/alsa
mv pulse-default.conf pulse-default.SUCKS
/sbin/alsactl restore
mplayer /usr/share/sounds/what_the_hell.mp3

Audio playback successful!

Some people say remove the rpm

alsa-plugins-pulseaudio

and another Fedora 8 person has urged me to install

kde-settings-pulse

$ xmms *

      • PULSEAUDIO: Unable to connect: Connection refused
    • WARNING **: alsa_setup(): Failed to open pcm device (default):

Connection refused

$ mplayer * ....

      • PULSEAUDIO: Unable to connect: Connection refused

[AO_ALSA] Playback open error: Connection refused Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound. Audio: no sound Video: no video ....

The solution isn't as simple as starting pulseaudio, though: 

$ pulseaudio 
W: alsa-util.c: Cannot find mixer control "Master". 
E: module-alsa-source.c: Error opening PCM device hw:0: No such file or directory 
E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-alsa-source" (argument: "device=hw:0 source_name=alsa_input.pci_1002_4383_alsa_capture_0"): initialization failed.

Microphone detected but can't change volume in Mint Linux

You open pulseaudio in Linux Mint and the Microphone audio device under "Input" is displayed, however, the slider is grayed out. Can apply to Linux Mint 18.x - 20.x

Try to clear the settings in the ~/.config/pulse directory. Delete all of the directory contents (rm * but not rm -r *). Once all the files in that folder are gone execute the following command at the cli: 

pulseaudio -k

Now reboot and see if you have control over the microphone slider.

Controlling Pulse Audio from CLI

restart the Pulse Audio with: 

pulseaudio -k

You can check if the pulse audio is running by: 

pulseaudio --check

if all is ok no output will be shown. you can start it and check for problems on start by:

  • the pulseaudio --check reports nothing even when the service is stopped. this does not seem to do a damn thing. 
pulseaudio --start
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