Another Linux lie: we have multimedia

Truth: you pretend to.

Years ago, I begged Linux "community" not to abandon ALSA for PulseAudio. I explained that forcing a networked sound server on everyone is an unreasonable and unreliable way to play sound. Nobody listened. Today, 10-15 years late, Interwebs are full of questions/bug reports of 'Pulseaudio crashing' with no resolution in sight.

On my system, PulseAudio also developed a habit of crashing, with no possibility of recovery other than by rebooting the machine;

$ sudo pulseaudio -k
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to kill daemon: No such process
$ sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*
                     USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/controlC0:  root        751 f.... alsactl
                     user2      1563 F.... pulseaudio
$ pulseaudio 
E: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.
$ sudo pulseaudio -k
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to kill daemon: No such process
$ pulseaudio -D
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

I warned them that they created a monster, but there is enormous, orchestrated pressure to use PA. It is so heavy-handed that there is clearly a conspiracy behind that because they use psychologically sophisticated tactics that only special services have access to or training in. Someone badly wants PA on each Linux box. Backdoor anyone?

Anyhow, since all 'official' commands fail I found a bulletproof way to restart PA.

$ ps lmax|grep pulse
1  1000  1563     1   -   - 2340828 18516 -     -    ?          0:05 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog
0  1000  6731  6040   -   - 119460   880 -      -    pts/1      0:00 grep --color=auto pulse
$ sudo kill -s SIGKILL 1563

After that, the monstrosity restarts itself, and I have the sound again. Screw you, genius degenerates!

Posted by: LinuxLies at 03:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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