Network Server

A Pulseaudio network server is easy to configure and comes handy when you have multiple computers or virtual machines and just one pair of speakers. Further more do not all remote desktop solutions deliver sound.

Firewall

The server awaits incoming connections on port 4731, which is why this port must be accessible through the firewall.

Redirection to Jack Audio Server

pacmd load-module module-jack-sink channels=2

Connecting a client to a running Server

pactl load-module module-tunnel-sink-new sink_name=server_name channels=2 rate=48000 server=127.0.0.1

where 127.0.0.1 is the IP-Address or host name of the pulseaudio server and all other parameters are optional.

Line (input) monitor

pacmd load-module module-loopback

Terminal-Bell

Some linux distributions blacklist the pcspkr kernel module. Pulseaudio can realize a terminal bell in user space. The necessay module is called module pulseaudio-x11-bell (under Fedora) and works like this:

From the terminal

pactl upload-sample /usr/share/sounds/KDE_Beep.ogg mybellsound
pactl play-sample mybellsound
pactl load-module module-x11-bell sample=mybellsound

• Zeile 1 Load a sound
• Zeile 2 test the playback
• Zeile 3 Use the sound as bell sound

Via a global configuration file

# /etc/pulse/default.pa
load-sample-lazy mybellsound /usr/share/sounds/pop.wav
load-module module-x11-bell sample=mybellsound

…to create a system wide bell sound using /etc/pulse/default.pa

Test the bell

[CTRL]+[G]
echo -e "a"

Adjust the bell volume

xset b 100
[CTRL]+[G]
xset b 50
[CTRL]+[G]

One pulseaudio and multiple X-servers

To use a global pulseaudio daemon, make sure that its users are added to the pulse group. A ls -l /var/lib/pulse may be a quick way to determine the correct group name.