I found an upstream bug report: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58758 It's from 2013 and is marked as fixed. The reporter was suggesting that "pulseaudio.desktop should have NotShowIn=KDE;", which is what the patch I uploaded does and what several people also suggested. But the actual fix is different.
>From what I understood, the problem is that the startup scripts communicate >with avahi synchronously, but "Avahi basically only makes blocking D-Bus >calls", so this may cause a delay due to a timeout. The fix makes these communications asynchronous. Could this also affects other desktop environments? Here is the commit that fixes this: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/commit/?id=5ae5dee75eb70ff81414bd64b4ea41e6b8db7599 Here is another commit that mentioned "avahi" in the commit log: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/commit/?id=37e73e10be9e42544a4cc160ff85ccada2cc9aa9 There may be other relevant commits. I think Pulse Audio 5 has this problem fixed, but Ubuntu still uses version 4. Even Utopic uses version 4, even though Debian testing and sid are already on 5. So, that fix has to be backported for Ubuntu. ** Bug watch added: freedesktop.org Bugzilla #58758 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58758 ** Also affects: pulseaudio via https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58758 Importance: Unknown Status: Unknown -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to pulseaudio in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1296420 Title: Pulseaudio makes kde stall for a few seconds during startup Status in PulseAudio sound server: Unknown Status in “pulseaudio” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: Quote from this post. : http://linuxadvantage.blogspot.dk/2013/01/kde-rather-slow-to-start-pulseaudio.html On many distributions delivering KDE, since version 4.2, I have often found incomprehensibles slowness between login step and the time the desktop is fully loaded and usable. Indeed, we can see unfold normally the KDE's "splashscreen" and the desktop appears but in the systray, all the icons are not loaded and it is not possible to run a program until the startup sound is heard. This is long seconds (10 or 15 for me) where nothing happens (no visible disk access). After answering on this thread [1] , I opened a bug in KDE and it appears that the culprit is PulseAudio. Indeed, it seems that PulseAudio package for KDE brings 2 startup files instead of one: "pulseaudio.desktop" and "pulseaudio- kde.desktop" This often generates a delay to load the desktop caused by the program that is trying to start twice. Note that this is not systematic, I guess in some cases, the correct file is launched before the bad and in this case, there isn't any delays. The solution: Just simply delete the unwanted file to retreive a fast loading time. This is valid for all distributions. - Open a console as root - Go to the directory /etc/xdg/autostart - Check that you have two files "pulseaudio.desktop" and "pulseaudio-kde.desktop" in this directory. - Delete the file "pulseaudio.desktop" (or rename it to "pulseaudio.desktop.disable" if you prefer to keep it) - Reboot normally there shouldn't be more delay now caused by PulseAudio to logon [1] https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312560 ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04 Package: pulseaudio 1:4.0-0ubuntu10 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-19.39-lowlatency 3.13.6 Uname: Linux 3.13.0-19-lowlatency i686 ApportVersion: 2.13.3-0ubuntu1 Architecture: i386 AudioDevicesInUse: USER PID ACCESS COMMAND /dev/snd/controlC1: sgh 2336 F.... pulseaudio sgh 2796 F.... pulseaudio /dev/snd/controlC0: sgh 2336 F.... pulseaudio sgh 2796 F.... pulseaudio CurrentDesktop: KDE Date: Sun Mar 23 22:22:58 2014 InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-12-24 (89 days ago) InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Alpha i386 (20131224) SourcePackage: pulseaudio UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) dmi.bios.date: 07/02/2012 dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO dmi.bios.version: G7ET31WW (1.13 ) dmi.board.asset.tag: Not Available dmi.board.name: 2356GCG dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO dmi.board.version: Not Defined dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information dmi.chassis.type: 10 dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO dmi.chassis.version: Not Available dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvrG7ET31WW(1.13):bd07/02/2012:svnLENOVO:pn2356GCG:pvrThinkPadT430s:rvnLENOVO:rn2356GCG:rvrNotDefined:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable: dmi.product.name: 2356GCG dmi.product.version: ThinkPad T430s dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/pulseaudio/+bug/1296420/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
