PulseAudio is a sound server. ALSA manages hardware drivers and provides simple interface. PA places itself between any application that tries to use ALSA, ESD or OSS and routes the stream to the corresponding driver manually. In short, it allows to distribute, (re)route and mix any sound streams on any amount of sound cards. It solved many audio problems for me, I have 2 sound cards btw(SBLive and builtin nvidia soundstorm), including uncontrollable playing sound streams on different cards by different programs and especially sound card "monopolization" by certain programs.See wiki for PulseAudio.
If sound output of any given application is not predictable (ie picks up different [EMAIL PROTECTED] time) then PA wont help thou. -- Audio does not consistantly play through the same device https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/261871 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs