NFS Root Media Centre v2.0
So I've been running my home media centre on Mageia for the last year or so and Mandriva before that. Rather than just a simple setup with a normal disk, I like to try and make things complicated for myself. I don't necessarily do this because it's the best and most efficient setup (it's very likely NOT!), but I do it for the sake of learning how things work and glue together, maintainability and, in theory at least, replication to more hardware as I expand my house and the media player "outlets".
So a little over a year ago I wrote about how to setup Mageia 1 with network booting and an NFS root, so with all the changes in Mageia 2's init system (switch to systemd and dracut), and because I wanted to switch the architecture to x86_64, I figured a re-image was called for and of course I tried to take appropriate notes so others can learn from this experience - perhaps putting it to more practical use than just a single home media centre!!
PulseAudio, PulseVisual, PulseTalks
So I'm just back from Nürmberg, German where I was fortunate enough to be invited to the speak at the OpenSuse Developer Summit. It has to be said, everything went really well. The first thing that struck me about this event is that it was quite inclusive. Although, obviously, the point was to discuss, promote and develop Suse there were folk there from other distros including Debian, Fedora and, of course Mandriva/Mageia (well, me!). This was very nice to see.
This is the route to hell
So I would like to take a few minutes to talk about audio routing in PulseAudio. This is a oft misunderstood topic and it does sometimes seem like black magic and/or broken but, as always, it's pretty simple when you look at it properly. That's not to say it's sensible (I have a several reservations about the current way of working), but the first step to improving something is understanding it, so I'll try to explain here and then say what I think is needed to improve it. This is a rather complex and in depth post, so if this kind of stuff doesn't float your boat, it's a good candidate to skip :p
Mix it some more
OK, so this is really just an update on my earlier post about KMix PulseAudio integration.
I've spent quite a lot of time refining the initial support I added a few weeks back. What follows is a brief summary of the changes/improvements/bugfixes.
Mix it up
Hot on the heels of my Phonon PulseAudio integration, here is another set of patches for kdemultimedia that adds PulseAudio support to KMix \o/
Quick screenie before a more detailed description:
So how does the KDE PulseAudio support work anyway?
So I think it's probably worth me writing up just exactly how the PulseAudio support in KDE's Phonon library actually works and why using it will give you some nice extra features!
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".
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