The aim of the article is to guide you in installing and configuring the PulseAudio server. For more Information about the PulseAudio Server check the [http://pulseaudio.org/ PulseAudio Wiki].

PulseAudio consists of 6 packages: media-sound/pulseaudio, media-sound/paprefs, media-sound/pavumeter, media-sound/padevchooser, media-sound/paman and media-sound/pavucontrol. Note that everything but media-sound/pulseaudio are X-GUI apps, so you won't need them unless you run X.Org.

To find what USE-flags pulseaudio carries, run,

$ emerge -pv pulseaudio paprefs pavucontrol paman padevchooser pavumeter 

Emerge pulseaudio by running

$ emerge -av pulseaudio paprefs pavucontrol paman padevchooser pavumeter

PulseAudio has three configuration files. * /etc/pulse/client.conf * /etc/pulse/daemon.conf * /etc/pulse/default.pa

Run

$ eselect esd list
$ eselect esd set <number of PulseAudio>

Before using PulseAudio, you must launch the PulseAudio server:

$ pulseaudio

Alternatively, You can use a system-wide instance for the PulseAudio server.

• This is not recommended unless you are running a thin client.

You will want to add pulseaudio to the 'default' Runlevel.

$ eselect rc add pulseaudio default

And add your user to 'pulse' and 'pulse-access' groups

$ gpasswd -a <USER> pulse
$ gpasswd -a <USER> pulse-access

If a program supports PulseAudio directly, generally, you would use PulseAudio directly. If a program only supports ALSA, then you can use PulseAudio through ALSA.

For ALSA support emerge media-plugins/alsa-plugins.

Add this to your ~/.asoundrc:

pcm.pulse {
   type pulse
}

ctl.pulse {
   type pulse
}

If you need a test sound file, emerge gnome-extra/gnome-audio which only has sound files:

Test with:

# aplay -Dpulse /usr/share/sounds/generic.wav

If you want PulseAudio to be the default device for ALSA, add this to your .asoundrc:

pcm.!default {
  type pulse
}

ctl.!default {
   type pulse
}

Emerge media-plugins/gst-plugins-pulse for gstreamer support:

Run gstreamer-properties and under the Audio tab set default Input and default Output plugin to PulseAudio:

# gstreamer-properties

If you want to have Flash support on your system you will have to install libflashsupport, emerge libflashsupport

If you want to hear system sounds in system-wide instance you need change startup script /etc/init.d/pulseaudio. In function start() add this text after

start-stop-daemon --start --exec /usr/bin/pulseaudio -- ${PA_ALL_OPTS}:

if [ -e /var/run/pulse/.esd_auth ]; then
  chown pulse:pulse-access /var/run/pulse/.esd_auth
  chmod 640 /var/run/pulse/.esd_auth
fi