Pulseaudio for Fatdog64-811 public test
This thread concerns a public test of a working PulseAudio for Fatdog-811, in response to recent requests.
The current test set comprises:
- PulseAudio server (pulseaudio 13.99.2)
- canonical Volume Control GUI (pavucontrol 4.0)
- contributed PulseAudio system tray GUI (pasystray 0.7.1-13)
Scripts:
- install script for Fatdog test (install-pulseaudio.sh 2020-11-24)
- tray icon GUI for Fatdog test (pa-tray.sh 2020-12-10)
- standalone Volume Control tray icon (pulseaudio-tray.sh 2020-11-26)
Application support
See post #2
How you can help
See post #2.
Getting started
The whole test set can be downloaded from this shared folder.
- Download the contents of the shared folder to an empty local folder, and make the scripts executable (script names end with
.sh
). - Start a terminal window in the local folder.
- Run
./pa-tray.sh &
. This will start a green tray icon labelled "PA". - Right-click the PA tray icon to select from the menu:
- Back up ALSA audio
- Start PulseAudio
- Volume Control
Now the PulseAudio server should be running and a volume control window should be open and show three tabs. Now you can venture in the unfamiliar world of PulseAudio. To end your venture right-click the PA tray icon and select from the menu:
- Exit apps
- Stop PulseAudio
- Restore ALSA audio
- Exit
What happened behind your back
The first time you click "Start PulseAudio" the server and its dependencies are loaded by install-pulseaudio.sh
. The test set comprises SFS files and shell scripts only; nothing is installed permanently until you choose to do so. Therefore, if your system's audio gets messed up, you can reboot and it should work again. However, remember that this is a test; you must accept that not everything works as expected.
The direct dependencies that get loaded enable 70% of the functionality available in this test set. What is left disabled is pasystray's equalizer and the ability to toggle the volume control window open/closed by left-clicking the PA tray icon. To enable the equalizer install python3 or load the devx SFS. To enable window toggling install package wmctrl.
Once you become confident that PulseAudio works in your system, you could skip steps 2 and 3 and just click the pa-tray.sh
file icon to get started.
Scripts
pa-tray.sh
is useful to get started with testing but not at all necessary for stable use.
install-pulseaudio.sh
loads the test set. Eventually, this script will be superseded by actual packages that you will be able to install with Gslapt Package Manager.
pavucontrol-tray.sh
provides a stand-alone tray icon for pavucontrol
in case you want one and are not running pa-tray.sh
or pasystray
.
The shared download folder includes more auxiliary scripts.
Support
I will do what I can to support you but keep in mind I'm not familiar with PulseAudio beyond what I have learned while creating this test set. Also I am not an audio expert. I play very little audio on my system, mostly just youtube and some local mp3 files. My audio hardware is limited to the stock audio card inside my PC and a USB webcam. I'm not even sure yet that PulseAudio has a rightful place in Fatdog-811 but it's interesting to find out through this test effort. How? See post #2.
If you want to help - hey! this is for all Fatdog users after all - just say!