PulseAudio

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PulseAudio

Managed by: Lennart Poettering

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Current Stable Release: 0.9.7
License:

PulseAudio is an advanced cross-platform audio server that will soon be added to many Linux distributions, and Fedora will probably be the first. It works on any system that supports POSIX, like Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, and other Unix-like operating systems, or Win32, like different versions of Windows. It will allow users to do more with their audio, but will still require a back-end like ALSA, because it does not have the drivers to control the audio hardware devices.

[edit] Capabilities

Here is a screenshot of the PulseAudio volume control

PulseAudio can independently control the volume of each application, and move the audio among audio devices (speakers and USB headphones for example), even over the network, on the fly. It can do this automatically, like when USB headphones are plugged in. It can send one audio stream to more than one audio device simultaneously. This can be used to use two sound cards with 2 channels each, to output 4 channel surround.