Re: Audio output from firefox

[scole_mail <scole_mail%gmx.com@localhost>]

Paul Goyette <paul%whooppee.com@localhost> writes:

> On Sun, 19 Mar 2017, scole_mail wrote:
>
>> I think there were some old threads in netbsd-users mentioning you need
>> to maybe install alsa-plugins-oss and/or alsa-plugins-pulse, and
>> configure an ~/.asoundrc file properly.  I think alsa-lib and alsa-utils
>> might be useful to have as well.  This seems too complicated for me.
>
> Too complicated for me, too!
>
>> I tried to build firefox with oss using these options:
>> env PKG_DEFAULT_OPTIONS="-alsa dbus oss -pulseaudio"
>> Sound would work, but only on that one tab.  If I closed that first tab,
>> or tried to play sound on a new tab, it stopped working.
>>
>> So I tried firefox with pulseaudio:
>> env PKG_DEFAULT_OPTIONS="-alsa dbus pulseaudio"
>> This allowed sound in multiple tabs and can play concurrent sounds with
>> other programs, like mplayer.
>
> So, essentially, remove 'alsa' - hmmm.
>

This link seems to imply the "-alsa" is necessary, but I didn't try
without it:
https://mail-index.netbsd.org/pkgsrc-users/2016/12/21/msg024162.html

>> I still get occasional errors like:
>> W: [(null)] caps.c: Normally all extra capabilities would be dropped
>> now, but that's impossible because PulseAudio was built without
>> capabilities support.
>>
>> but readjusting the volume seems to fix it.
>>
>> I saw sound was being working on in current, so I'm not sure if the same
>> problems exist, but for the least fussy setup, pulseaudio seemed best to
>> me.
>>
>> If alsa is the firefox default sound option now, maybe the package
>> should display some of message with example setup on how to configure it
>> properly upon installation if it can't be done automagically.
>
> Yeah, automagically would be preferable for me!  :)
>
> Since it is built with both alsa and pulseaudio, is there a way to
> invoke firefox with some command-line option to select which one to
> use?
>

Sorry, don't know about that.

Here are some links claiming firefox is dropping alsa support for linux
 http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/03/firefox-52-no-sound-pulseaudio-alsa-linux
 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1247056
so maybe pulseaudio is the way to go anyway.

Thanks