How Will The Pandora''s Audio Be Set Up, In Terms Of Software?

[lulzfish]

I couldn't find any threads on this or any information elsewhere.
How will the Pandora's OS handle audio?
Is there a specific sound server or mixer that developers should target or something?

 

[Chip]

The last thing I saw in the dev forum back in Dec. was that they were going to use PulseAudio, as it works well and is already built into Angstrom. Link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PulseAudio

 

[lulzfish]

That's what I was hoping for, it looks like it has a lot of awesome features like network streaming that will only add to the list of things you can do with the Pandora.

 

[Magic Sam]

Hi,

Et ceca, n'est pas une newline.

I think "Et cela, n'est pas une newline." is more correct, IMHO
Bye, Magic Sam

 

[lulzfish]

Probably, it's been a few years since French class.

 

[dflemstr]

|
Ceci, n'est pas une pipe.
\n
Et cela, n'est pas une newline.

Je pense que c'est une "line feed"
Mais sur Windows, on ne sait jamais qu'il est... Le même, mais avec un "carriage return", aussi?
(Et oui, mon français est très mauvais, aussi)

On topic:
I use PulseAudio for EVERYTHING... Conencted my music environment downstairs to my main PC over optical a while ago, and it's awesome...
Combine it with JACK and you can make wonders happen... To be able to include my Pandora in that system would certainly be awesome

 

[Magic Sam]

Hi

Mais sur Windows, on ne sait jamais qu'il est... Le même, mais avec un "carriage return", aussi?

I don't understand what you meant, but I'm drunk, and it explains a lot of things actually
QUOTE

(Et oui, mon français est très mauvais, aussi)


I agree, but my Swedish would be even worst
Cheers, Magic Sam

 

[dflemstr]

Je pense que c'est une "line feed"
Mais sur Windows, on ne sait jamais qu'il est... Le même, mais avec un "carriage return", aussi?
(Et oui, mon français est très mauvais, aussi)


Was supposed to mean:

I think that it's a "line feed"
But on Windows, you never know what it is... The same, but with a "carriage return", too?
(And yes, my french is quite bad, aswell)

Supposed to.
(And I translated it directly into english, sorry if the syntax sounds wrong)

Now on topic:
What would the default streaming format for PA be?
2 channels on 44100 mHz is a given, but what about the sample format? s32be? s16be?
Just wanted to know what sound quality to expect by default (not that it matters, really)

 

[CCmachined]

hasn't PulseAudio on Ubuntu nearly always been broken, only allowing one application to use the sound at once? I've been having this issue since 7.10 as have my ubuntu friends.

probably just Ubuntu's implementation?

 

[hells_dark]

hasn't PulseAudio on Ubuntu nearly always been broken, only allowing one application to use the sound at once? I've been having this issue since 7.10 as have my ubuntu friends.

probably just Ubuntu's implementation?

Maybe but none of my 3 ubuntu pc have this problem…

 

[dflemstr]

Ubuntu is kind of weird in it's implementation of PA. It uses a kind of "fail-safe" chain of audio systems, so that if one fails, theres another one loaded underneath that takes over.

Fastest "fix" I know for this: Go to the Gnome Sound dettings dialog, and set everything there to "PulseAudio Sound Server", and use a device that starts with "Playback:" for your "Device:"

PulseAudio can be very very nice if it is not implemented like it is in Ubuntu.
Look at Fedora, for example; if you start with the default Fedora setup, you get not only a fully working PulseAudio setup, but also 3D-positioned event sounds (so, for example, if a dialog pops up to the left, you hear it in the left speaker)...
And if you install "projectM-pulseaudio", you get system-wide visualization support (You know, visualizations like in Exaile or RythmBox or whatever, but for All sounds on the system)

Then we have all the packages that start with "pa":
paprefs - Configure things like network sharing etc
paman - View your output volumes live
pavucontrol - Control the volume of all your applications individually
etc...

 

[WizardStan]

The only problem I've ever had with PulseAudio is it gets into this weird lock state every few weeks. I'd like to blame the flash plugin, since it always occurs when doing something flash intensive, but more experimentation is required.
When it gets into this locked state, there's no sound at all; since PA is still "running" it doesn't fall back on ALSA, but there's still no sound because PA just isn't running. Solution is simply to kill and restart the daemon. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
I do hope that this problem doesn't appear on the Pandora though.

 

[truekaiser]

i don't see why something as complex as pulse audio is needed for a simple system such as this. it will have a set soundcard, no way of changing it i would think plain alsa would be enough.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

The only problem I've ever had with PulseAudio is it gets into this weird lock state every few weeks. I'd like to blame the flash plugin, since it always occurs when doing something flash intensive, but more experimentation is required.
When it gets into this locked state, there's no sound at all; since PA is still "running" it doesn't fall back on ALSA, but there's still no sound because PA just isn't running. Solution is simply to kill and restart the daemon. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

i experienced that lockup issue only in combination with the faulty fglrx driver while i'm watching TV or playing a few games (if it's really just the driver it shouldn't appear on the Pandora), with another driver i've never had that issue. i'd recommend to remove PulseAudio and use ALSA instead or, if possible, simply switch to the open driver.

 

[sindbad]

i don't see why something as complex as pulse audio is needed for a simple system such as this. it will have a set soundcard, no way of changing it i would think plain alsa would be enough.
That's not entirely accurate. There are plenty of USB sound cards, from dumb dongles to sophisticated headphones to dj systems.

 

[cb88]

@truekaiser and Letalis Sonus if they have it working already there is no reason to change it... ALSA sucks btw basically Linux sound is cursed (ISA sound support quasi non existent ... cracking on ac97 chip) but if they have it working leave it be says me

 

[Chip]

The general consensus seemed to be that PulseAudio's extra functionality and just plain workingness were more than worth the slight additional overhead compared to ALSA.

 

[lulzfish]

I somehow managed to crash PulseAudio last night while watching YouTube.
It's really funny when you realize that all the videos are muted for no reason.
Even so, it wasn't Flash, I have a Firefox script that gives the FLV from YouTube to the embedded Totem player.

Also, are there tutorials for programming PulseAudio applications? All I can find on Google is stuff like "help pa broke everything" or "I think PA is a pretty cool guy, eh" or "How to get rid of PA", but I can't find any tutorials on how to use it in a program. I have the development libraries and I've tried one of the examples from PA's website, but the examples are just code, they're not really explained anywhere.

 

[truekaiser]

@truekaiser and Letalis Sonus if they have it working already there is no reason to change it... ALSA sucks btw basically Linux sound is cursed (ISA sound support quasi non existent ... cracking on ac97 chip) but if they have it working leave it be says me

I always wonder where people like you get your alsa versions from. i have rarely had trouble with alsa with any trouble i do have being solved within a few minutes of looking it up either on their site or the distro that i use. also upon looking up pulse audio it seems your still using alsa because all pulse audio is, is a layer on top of alsa like esd, art's, or phonon.

I can guess allot of you come into this with the idea that it will be like windows and 'just work' this is a very tall order because most of the time coder's for linux get outright hostility at them if they ask for information on how to get hardware to work from companys. it will always be a step behind windows.

 

[cb88]

ALSA where did i get it... well about 5 different distros XD

Debian Arch Ubuntu Puppylinux

Alsa is just a pain with ISA for no real reason ie BeOS detected my yahmaha ISA sound by default perhaps they had some proprietary know how though it is supposed to be supported by alsa have tried all DMA and IRQ combinations BIOS tells me nothing

as far as crackling on the AC97 that is intermittent and only happens in Linux

I know the difference between PA and ALSA ;-) and yes Linux sound is cursed... nobody should ever have to run alsaconf which a lot of times you don't but you get the idea