Bug#585555: Please don't set the default audio output in /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf

[Pascal Gervais]

Le Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:03:41 +0200,
Reinhard Tartler <siretart at tauware.de> a écrit :

> On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 17:18:18 (CEST), Pascal Gervais wrote:
> 
> > On 2010-06-11 19:31, Andres Mejia wrote:
> >> Considering the integration of pulseaudio by many distributions and
> >> projects, and considering the fact that Debian's gnome package
> >> ultimitely depends on pulseaudio through it's dependencies, it's
> >> reasonable to assume that pulseaudio will be installed on a user's
> >> machine, for the majority case.
> >> 
> >
> > First, I don't care about other distributions, I'm using Debian!
> >
> > Secondly, Debian has five different installation CD-ROMs: One with
> > GNOME, one with KDE, one with Xfce and/or LXDE, and two net
> > installation CD-ROMs (netinst and businesscard) with which we can
> > install plenty other wonderful window managers. Without forgetting
> > the LiveCDs available with the four major desktop environments
> > (GNOME,KDE,Xfce and LXDE).
> >
> > Third, Debian is not Ubuntu. Debian users are generally more
> > advanced users who does not necessarily install it with the CD with
> > GNOME as you seem to think.
> >
> > Fourth, GNOME is not the center of the universe!
> >
> > Fifth, MPlayer is not a GNOME apps!
> 
> irrelevant in all points.
> 

Yes, maybe, but at the same level as his disrespectful attitude by
focusing only on the suggestion that I have done instead of the bug
itself.

I never faced this MPlayer behavior on all my Debian Xfce box using
ALSA since years. Then, someone decided that the default audio output
should be configured directly in the Debian package rather than to let
the users set it themselves. So, is this irrelevant to ask if the
direct cause of a bug can be reverted? Is that the simple act of asking
to reconsider a change which causes a bug is enough to change the
severity of the bug report to "wishlist" and tag it to "wontfix"?

I apologize if his attitude and his decision made me slightly
aggressive.

> >> Also, I think having the sound device taken over by one program,
> >> leaving other programs with no sound, is a bigger issue than
> >> waiting a few seconds for mplayer to start playback.
> >> 
> >
> > And I think having to wait six to seven seconds before MPlayer
> > start my playlist and that having to wait six to seven seconds
> > between each audio files of my playlist is a bug, an unacceptable
> > behavior, a
> 
> I agree that this is a bug
> 
> > regression that occurred when you decided to set pulseaudio as the
> > default audio output of MPlayer.
> 
> on your system but obviously not on others
> 
> > Anyway, in case you are interested in finding what is wrong, here is
> > the outpout of MPlayer when it tries to find pulseaudio:
> > waitpid(): No child processes
> > AO: [pulse] Init failed: Internal error
> > Failed to initialize audio driver 'pulse'
> >
> > 'waitpid(): No child processes' is where MPlayer takes all that time
> > before starting each audio and video playback.
> 
> as said this symptom cannot be reproduced on other systems. We'd need
> a more thourough analysis in order to fix the issue. But I agree with
> Andres that not setting the default ao to pulse as you demand is not a
> good solution for Debian.
> 

This actually happens on my three different Debian Xfce systems
(testing/unstable) using ALSA where PulseAudio has never been installed
except for libpulse0 installed as a dependency of MPlayer. So the only
difference I see is that you seem to try to reproduce it on systems
where PulseAudio is already installed.

Thanks

Attached:
MPlayer output
MPlayer with gdb
MPlayer with strace

-- 
Pascal
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