Colin.Guthr.ie Illegitimi non carborundum

2Oct/0923

KDE + PulseAudio != Sucks

So I've been spending altogether far too much time on getting this stuff working, but it's finally in a state where it no longer sucks.

For several releases we (Mandriva) have been patching KDE's phonon support to hide all the real devices if PulseAudio is used because the GUI really makes no sense (PulseAudio handles all the routing for us). This is an acceptable solution but it's far from ideal.

So with the latest set of three patches (one for pulseaudio, one for phonon and the final one for kdebase4-runtime) I now have a fully working system (albeit with some caveats!).

27Aug/098

Skype + Pulse Goodness

Looks like Auld Nick has got some ice skates..... There is a new version of Skype for GNU/Linux! And it supports PulseAudio pretty well :)

2Aug/0933

Sound on Linux Anti-FUD: Calm, Certainty and Confidence

Over the years I've listened to several opinions expressing doubt over the Linux sound stack. There are lots of ill informed comments out there concerning various things sound related, both positive and negative, but more often than not commentators miss out very important aspects of a modern, multi-user, desktop sound stack. So in this article I'll attempt to discuss some of the misconceptions out there, provide a balanced view of the current state of affairs, discuss some of the perceived mistakes in the rollout of new sound stacks and where things are going in the future.

2Aug/0912

Sound on Linux is Confusing: Defuzzing Part 2: PulseAudio

In an earlier article, I describe how the low level ALSA configuration allowed us to route all applications using the ALSA API via PulseAudio. In this article we'll take a look at the various configuration files and variables that control this side of the audio path.

2Aug/095

Sound on Linux is Confusing: Defuzzing Part 1: ALSA

So I often hear the phrase: "Sound on Linux is Confusing". While I don't totally disagree with this statement, as with everything on Linux the sound system is pretty logical and if you follow through the steps you can demystify things pretty quickly. So this article will explain how things work on Mandriva and should ensure users are more comfortable with "how things work".

27Jul/094

Integrating Login and Home Directory on OS X Leopard Clients

I've recently been dabbling in OS X related stuff. One of the things that is important to me is ensuring that my login details and users can use the OS X machine just the same as any other. Not that I really have any need for this, seeing as I'm pretty much the only user, but I like to learn these things :)

20Jul/091

New Website

Well, if you've ever visited this site before the 20th July 2009, then you'll probably see some changes!

I've not really updated my old site for a while and I rarely wrote articles etc. This new site probably won't change that and will receive the same update schedule, based on the orbital timeframe of a blue satellite.

So as you can probably tell I'm now using wordpress. So far I really like it. Simple and effective UI, lots of plugins and a ton of templates too. I didn't modify this template too much - just slapped in a nice header image and made the lifestream widget not look silly. I've not checked my changes in any browser than Firefox... so I've probably totally broken it!

The old URLs should be redirected as should my old RSS link. I had to copy the comments across manually but as I only had three real ones, that wasn't really a problem!

Filed under: Development 1 Comment
29Jun/091

What’s cooking in the Pulse Pot

While I've done a bit of pavucontrol hacking, the most interesting stuff is happening in pulse itself, specifically in relation to better KDE support...

29Jun/092

Configuring audio ports in PulseAudio

As I added support for changing card profiles in PulseAudio, now that pulse supports "ports" it's time for me to get my developer hat on again!

4May/094

Upgrading to Mandriva 2009.1

Well it's that time of the bi-year again. The twice annual Mandriva upgrade! Well in fairness, I actually skipped 2009.0 at work, so it's been a year since I last fiddled there. There was no particular reason for me skipping this release, I just think we were quite busy and a convenient time to do the upgrades didn't really pop up.

So, what happened I hear you cry? Well, surprisingly little drama thankfully! There were a few issues, but they were mostly minor so I only mention them here in case they trip up the less ninja skilled out there :p