I’m running Ubuntu 11.04 “Natty Narwhal” on a custom box, and have been plaqued with sound issues. Well, one sound issue, and it’s the one you are expecting if you came here by search: Pulseaudio crackles in every application. Whether speakers or headphones, audio out the front or off the card in the back; it’s bad. Although in the Prefs panel for sound, the test tone does not crackle. Key troubleshooting point there–I believe from the reading that that sound test does not go through Pulse.
So I wanted to whack pulse. Did some reading. Saw (going from memory here)
killall pulseaudio
apt-get remove pulseaudio
apt-get install esound
And restart. So I did apt-get -s [commands etc], which is the “do-nothing” dry run, just-checking option. Looked good. Then removed PA, installed ES, and rebooted.
When the system came back up, the sound was crystal clear, and I had no net connectivity. I had to manually enter the (anyway already reserved) IP address for this machine from my router, and even added the pri and sec DNS server IPs. This only got me as far as my router. I did not attempt surfing to a numeric IP address other than the router. Instead, re-booted. System came back up, crackly audio, blazing net connection.
The last time I dealt with something as goofy as this was an ATI busmouse (ps/2 connecter on the video card, competing with AT connector from the mobo.
If this doesn’t get better fast, this machine will say hello to my little friend: Windows Home Server.
As much as I like Ubuntu, and adore Canonical for what they are doing with it (reliable update schedule for a free operating system, for which you can also pay for dedicated industrial strength support), the pulseaudio thing could well be a deal-breaker. I don;t want to get too melodramatic here, but it is obvious that the Ubuntu team have committed to pulse and are not very patient with people who recommend simply uninstalling it. Sorry, but pulse has been flaky since 2007. If the powers that be in the volunteer and paid Ubuntu development team are on a death march, I have no wish to join them.
But we’ll see. It could all work soon.
To be continued…
Wow. It’s a death-march, and a deal-breaker. This really does not bode well for Ubuntu’s outlook. People are frustrated and walking away from it because they are trying to perfect this net-sound-kernel thing, and as a result, haven’t had a working simple sound module in four or five years. Oh, I have missed much while I was a away. I have Windows7 on a little laptop, and I like it a lot. Bye-bye, Ubuntu.
