 What's up everyone? Today I want to talk about pulse audio. Do you need pulse audio on Linux? Is it actually required? Is it a terrible thing that's destroying Linux? I want to give my opinions on this. Let's find out So first if you're a noob if you don't know anything about what pulse audio is if you've just heard the name What is it? Okay? It is an audio system that is used on Linux. Now Linux by default has something called alsa ALSA I think it's like something Linux sound whatever doesn't matter what it stands for but it's built into it's Built on top of the Linux kernel. Okay, it's the basic audio system pulse audio is something that you can put on top of alsa and The reason being also is very hard to use. Okay, and I'm gonna talk about that in this video by itself Also is is very restricted. Okay, so pulse audio is this system on top of alsa And it's a little controversial for several reasons first off people say pulse audio is total bloat It generates a lot of problems that people run into a bunch of issues with it and you know most importantly, right? It's written by Leonard pottering who everyone likes to hate. He's the guy who wrote system D now as it happens I you know on this channel. We are big proponents of minimalism Okay, and pulse audio and system D are both not minimalist systems. However, I have actually defended system D in the past You know, I don't I don't use it, but I think it's you know, I don't think it's that bad I don't I don't think it's like destroying the world a lot of people talk about it Like it's the end of the world or something like that And you know, there are bad things about it, but I think they're just overblown Okay, that you can watch my original video on that if you want And pulse audio I actually have a different opinion on this now first off I do think that the complaints that people make about pulse audio like the complaints about system D are like drastically overstated but more importantly The important thing is this like the people who are complaining about pulse audio have evidently not tried to live without it Okay, that that's what like pulse audio functions. It has errors But the alternative is a non-functioning audio system now also theoretically can do everything that pulse audio can do But here's the issue with also first off lit what let me tell you in case you haven't done it Let's say you install a Linux distribution that does not have install pulse audio Most of them install pulse audio just because when you have pulse audio installed things work the way you expect them to work But let's say you install one that doesn't have pulse audio. How does it work? Well, if you install archer gen 2 or whatever You know just a minimal install And then you boot up Let's say you you know play some music in your music player And then you try and watch a YouTube video at the same time you want music in the background Maybe you're one of those. That's a weird thing, but people do it. Okay Well also by itself is actually not gonna work it can't play two sources at the same time It cannot do that you have to go into also and you have to add this configuration file now It's not just like activate this. It's not like a simple configuration It's like the also configuration file is actually very hard to understand frankly But you have to add a couple of lines that say okay I want to activate this module that allows me to actually play two things at the same time That's what you have to do with also or let's say what all nearly always happens is you install You know on your fresh install you realize that also is not loud enough. It nearly never is it's like a hundred percent It's like this little whisper. Okay, so you want to increase the volume the maximum volume That is another thing that you have to add to your also config and it is not just like change the maximum volume That's not what it is. It is this complicated looking stuff like also configuration It's like things in a bracket. Well, the other I should say this isn't like a thing where you can just read the manual There is no also documentation. This is what I need people to understand You cannot just look something up in You know the manual you cannot even look it up online because although all of these people are telling you not to use Pulse audio and use also only they're not actually doing it So they don't have there's not like a place online. You can look where it says Oh, this is how you actually do things on also It doesn't happen people don't actually just use also alone unless they're just being minimalists for the like and they don't care About the dysfunction here's some other stuff that it try it try I I've actually Asked people in the past show me how to do this on also no one I'm sure it's possible But no one has ever told me how to do it I want to be able to record audio output on my computer Let's say that I'm having a chat with someone Like a over the internet and I want to record the audio from my microphone And I want to record the audio that I hear from them. How do you do that on also? How do you do it? Like there's there is no built by default also cannot take audio output as an input Okay, you have to manually figure out how that works and I have asked many people I I've never run into anyone who knows how to do that. It is possible But you also and the other thing about the also configuration file is if you want to do multiple of these things at the same time That's actually a big rigmarole like it's easy to change the maximum volume on easy quote-unquote It's not really easy But you can figure out how to change the maximum source like the maximum volume of one of your outputs You can also figure out how you can have multi multiple Things on your computer playing output, okay at the same time But try and do both of them at once and you you realize oh, it's not just copying and pasting these two blocks You have to make them compatible cat shut up seriously this cat won't shut up. It's just been meowing the whole video What do you want? I just fed you anyway What was I saying? So like doing all the stuff on also like the thing is ultimately I am not convinced that there are actually people out there who have fully functioning audio setups on Also, I'm just not convinced like there are people who use also because oh, it's minimal And you know, I want to be able to brag on the internet. Oh, but I can't actually do all this other stuff that people consider basic Okay, another thing that pulse audio does automatically and pulse audio, of course does all of this stuff automatically same thing if you want to Oh another very basic thing when I unplug my headphones I want the volume to be at a different level From once, you know, if you if you have like a or let's say you're playing music sort of loud on your computer It let's say it's at like a hundred percent and that might be, you know an acceptable volume To listen to music depending on what kind of speakers you have. Well, then you plug in your headphones Okay, because you want to take your laptop off you take it somewhere else. You don't want people to hear your music Okay, well, uh, if you do that it's going to be blaring in your ears at 100 which is much much louder If you're using also pulse audio on the other hand automatically says okay for each different You know if they if they plug in headphones, they're going to want a different volume So we're going to store whatever volume they set last time for their headphones and we're going to use that instead of You know just keep you know carrying over the volume. So that's one another one of these things So when it comes to pulse audio, yes, pulse audio does terrible things There are terrible errors that people complain about with it all the time Oh, I gotta I had to reboot pulse audio because it messed this thing up Uh, actually, let me tell you some of the things that i'm struggling with right now with pulse audio Biggest annoyance right now is if you install my dot files, okay There's this stupid incompatibility with chrome based browsers that they don't automatically Start pulse audio because it's fluid synth or something like that. Okay, whatever I got to figure out what how exactly to fix this in a principled way um But uh, you know, so if I if you install my dot files as it is right now and pull up the browser and try to Watch a youtube video the audio doesn't properly start you have to start the audio You have to listen to some other audio to start pulse audio before it actually plays It's so stupid. I gotta figure out how to fix that that is a pulse audio problem Or well really it's some other application not properly starting pulse audio But that would not be a problem that I or maybe it wouldn't be a problem. I've had on also I don't know but I'll just say that's one problem that I've had on pulse audio Other thing other annoyances that I have on pulse audio You might see that some videos I start up with my audio manager pulled up That's because every once in a while because really what I'm doing is I'm checking to see what source what input It's actually recording because sometimes pulse audio will decide, you know what? I'm not gonna record off of his microphone I'm gonna decide that the the real default input is his uh, the little nasty microphone on the computer. Okay So, uh, those are two big annoyances of pulse audio that have actually cost me a lot of time But if I'm comparing pulse audio to also there's no contest because also is not a functioning Audio system unless you somehow magically know how it actually works, which no one does. There is no Institutional knowledge out there. You cannot look up online. How do actually configure things on also? Okay? It does it like there's no page. There's an manual. No one actually knows how also works People just complain about it all the time or they get complain about pulse audio And they say that also is better because they're not actually doing audio work with also also works if you like You know if you just want to play if you if you are just consuming product on youtube And uh, you know, maybe you have two input sources or something like that But you're not doing anything complicated for anything even you know, as I said recording audio output That's something really basic also. I've never figured out how to do anything on also There's no good directions for how to do things on also There's no good documentation It is just not workable and I'm not convinced that the people who say that they use and I mean like I have Tried hard to use just also when I used void linux void linux did not work well with pulse audio So I was like I'm just gonna force myself to use also did not work. Okay. It was a terrible time You can actually look back at those videos I recorded with also and the audio quality is awful because I had to like artificially increase Like the the the sound of the input and it ended up, you know There's just all this nasty gain and all this kind of stuff And of course the documentation for also is not out there to actually fix it Things actually work on pulse audio pulse audio has a lot of problems pulse audio can be an annoyance But it actually functions it actually functions like that like people think that we're all about Oh like looking cool on the internet and using fancy computers that uh Are hard to use so we can brag no it's about having a functioning computer And if someone wants to give me like the master also config that does everything right I will happily use it. I will happily never touch pulse audio again If someone wants to write great also deck documentation Or like show me this magical page that I've never discovered that tells you how to do everything on also I will gladly use it, but right now also is not functional So people who complain about you know pulse audio. I just don't all right. That that's it That's my that's my take on this people ask me every once and also there it is