Features/KDE PulseAudio Integration

KDE PulseAudio Integration

Summary

Fedora 13 features improved PulseAudio integration in KDE's Phonon and KMix.

Owner

• KDE SIG
• Email: Kevin@tigcc.ticalc.org, rdieter@math.unl.edu
• IRC: #fedora-kde

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 13
• Last updated: 2010-01-21
• Percentage of completion: 100%

Phonon PulseAudio integration is complete and available both in Rawhide and F12 updates. KMix PulseAudio integration is now in Rawhide and expected to be feature-complete.

Detailed Description

The following new PulseAudio integration features (developed by Colin Guthrie from Mandriva) are available in Fedora 13:

• Phonon detects PulseAudio and no longer shows non-PulseAudio devices when PulseAudio is running.
• PulseAudio includes a new module-device-manager which allows Phonon to manage PulseAudio devices.
• Using the above, Phonon allows setting device priorities for the devices reachable through PulseAudio.
• KMix now shows PulseAudio volumes, including per-application volumes, and allows moving applications between devices.
• The traditional ALSA backend for KMix is still available, use export KMIX_PULSEAUDIO_DISABLE=1 to force its use even if PulseAudio is detected.

Users not using PulseAudio are not affected by any of these changes.

See the blog links in the Documentation section for more information.

Documentation

Phonon:

• http://colin.guthr.ie/2009/10/kde-plus-pulseaudio-does-not-equal-sucks/
• http://colin.guthr.ie/2009/10/update-on-kdepulseaudio/
• http://colin.guthr.ie/2009/10/so-how-does-the-kde-pulseaudio-support-work-anyway/
• http://colin.guthr.ie/2009/11/pulseaudio-phonon-support-now-in-kde-trunk-and-heading-towards-4-4/

KMix:

• http://colin.guthr.ie/2010/01/mix-it-up/
• http://colin.guthr.ie/2010/01/mix-it-some-more/

Comments and Discussion

• See Talk:Features/YourFeatureName