Ubuntu Tip: Turning PulseAudio On and Off

"PulseAudio was supposed to cure desktop audio in Linux. It promised useful features like device routing and individual volume controls. It may well do these things; in my experience it has been frustrating, opaque, and unreliable.

"Some have claimed that Ubuntu's implementation is flawed; I haven't looked at other distros yet, so I don't know. On my Ubuntu 10.04 system there are five separate sound control panels lurking in various locations, four PulseAudio and one Gnome:

1. System > Preferences > Sound is the Gnome sound control panel
2. Which looks a lot like System > Preferences > PulseAudio Preferences (paprefs)
3. Then there is Applications > Sound and Video > PulseAudio Device Chooser (padevchooser)"

Complete Story

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