Update on KDE+PulseAudio
Just a small note to update on the progress.
The Test button now selects the right device. The way of achieving this is a little convoluted, but it seems to work well. We now generate a UUID for every phonon stream and push this into the PulseAudio stream proplist via an environment variable. We then look for all the streams in pulse and match up our UUID such that we can match up the pulse stream index to our phonon stream. We can then use this to move the stream to the appropriate device. Due to the async nature of PulseAudio, phonon sometimes requests the move before the stream is actually setup, so we have to queue up the move requests and process them when a stream appears. This approach also has the effect of causing the specific sink to be saved in module-stream-restore database, but this shouldn't matter in practice as phonon will always move it, so if the priority list changes, then we will always set the right device one way or the other even if the whole rigmarole could be avoided. But like I say, the practical outcome is fine, so let's just leave that for now.
The category is also passed through to PulseAudio now, so the the only thing that is not handled is when PulseAudio disconnects/restarts. Thankfully this is now getting less and less often as stability improves 
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!).
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
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.
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.
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".
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...
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!
Configuring card profiles in PulseAudio
The upcoming 0.9.15 release of PulseAudio will support "card profiles". What in the name of Almighty Bob (where Bob is a deity of questionable existence) is a card profile I hear you all cry. Well in our world of cost savings the majority of sound cards can operating in different but mutually exclusive configurations. For example some devices are capable of outputting 5.1 surround sound, but to do this they use the same jacks as are normally used for sound input, so you cannot record sound from the device when it is playing 5.1 sound.
As expected, information concerning what these capabilities are and under what situation they can be used simultaneously is not supplied to us by the ALSA layer. So to get around this problem,PulseAudio will probe for various configurations for you and provide a handy list which will allow for easy configuration. Sadly there is no GUI to control this. Or rather there was no GUI....
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