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