[Eltosch]

Hi all, I'm struggling with the sound in my setup.

I'm running Ubuntu Lucid together with XBMC on an ION based computer, sound/video through HDMI. The computer is mostly used for XBMC but sometimes I use the regular desktop or even use Spotify(Wine).

As I have understood it PulseAudio "steals" the access to the sound hardware making it impossible to passthrough sound directly to the sound device. There a few guides how to remove/disable PulseAudio to let XBMC use Alsa directly instead, but then I will loose sound in the desktop or? I have read "many" threads about audio on the forum, but I have a hard time deciding which way to go.

I'm interested in what kind of setup people uses and how it is configured? Which sound system (ALSA/PulseAudio/...) and settings in XBMC (passthrough/decode/...) for example does people prefer?

Regards,
Eltosch

[niietzshe]

I removed PulseAudio, best thing I ever did!!!
Now I'm running 5.1 DTS/DD with ALSA. Sure I've lost menu sounds in XBMC, which does annoy me, but the benefits of using all my speakers is much better.
I hope to get the menu sounds back, but to be honest It's not a major issue.

The desktop startup sound still plays as well as Boxee, Youtube and Spotify...
Although you have to quit each one before starting the next!
If the MacMini would have been as cheap as a Revo I'd have got one in a second, but it wasn't a viable option at the time. Would have made crap like this non existent though.