Please don't ask me for help in private. Keep it on the mailing list.
On Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 04:02:42PM -0400, Paul M. Foster wrote:
> Interestingly, I apparently have pulse installed and running:
>
> paulf@dudley:~$ ps ax | grep pulse
> 1063 ? S<sl 1642:33 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no
>
> I didn't manually load it, so somewhere it must have loaded itself. And the
> same with alsa:
>
> paulf@dudley:~$ ps ax | grep alsa
> 583 ? SNs 0:04 /usr/sbin/alsactl -E HOME=/run/alsa -s -n 19 -c
> rdaemon
>
> I don't know much about sound, so any pointers would help.
>
> Paul
I'm currently on bullseye, but I started using Pulse on buster, so some
details may appear slightly different. The basic steps should be similar,
though.
In my current X session, I have:
unicorn:~$ ps auxw | grep -e pulse -e alsa
greg 875 6.0 0.2 1682936 26992 ? S<sl Jul22 466:53
/usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
greg 239155 0.0 0.0 6112 724 pts/3 S+ 16:10 0:00 grep -e
pulse -e alsa
No sign of your alsactl program.
The fact that your pulseaudio daemon has 1642 minutes of total CPU time
used tells me you've been using it. That's a good sign, especially if
you weren't even aware you were using it. That means it must be doing
things correctly, at least to a first order approximation.
Here's my relevant hardware:
unicorn:~$ lsusb
[...]
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 046d:0892 Logitech, Inc. OrbiCam
unicorn:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [PCH ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
HDA Intel PCH at 0xdfc20000 irq 130
1 [C920 ]: USB-Audio - HD Pro Webcam C920
HD Pro Webcam C920 at usb-0000:00:14.0-3, high speed
When I run pavucontrol, and click input devices, it has automatically
selected "OrbiCam Analog Stereo" "Port: Microphone". And it has a little
blue bar that shows input volume level. I can see it spike when I type or
snap my fingers.
During the times when I was trying to start pulseaudio myself, pavucontrol
would never work. It would just say it couldn't talk to the daemon, or
something, I don't remember the wording. That was the clearest symptom
that I was doing something wrong. When that happened, shutting down
pulseaudio and starting it again worked. The thing was, I had to do that
*every* time I rebooted. The first time, it would fail, and the second
time, it would work. It was 100% consistent. To this day I don't know
*why* it's that way. It just is.
Removing the pulseaudio lines from my .xsession file fixed it.
My environment is as follows:
1) I login on the Linux console. No display manager.
2) I type 'startx'.
3) I have a .xsession file, which runs various things, and then runs fvwm.
4) I don't use any "Desktop Environment" (no GNOME, no KDE, no LXDE, etc.).
Just fvwm.
It all works for me. Unfortunately, this means I have very little
first-hand knowledge of failure states to help you diagnose your issues.
If you can describe your exact symptoms in detail, someone else on the
mailing list might be able to help you. Be specific. Tell us what you
see in pavucontrol, and what happens when you select each of the available
input devices.
