Bug#737083: pulseaudio: ALSA cannot be used directly when pulseaudio is installed

[G.raud]

Package: pulseaudio
Version: 2.0-6.1
Severity: important

When pulseaudio is installed, the file
'/usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.d/pulse.conf' is loaded and it seems that the
result is that pulseaudio is automatically started (when it is not
already running) whenever ALSA is used.  Thus if a user explicitly
requested an ALSA device outputting to a hardware card (other than
pulse), this device cannot be opened anymore because the hardware device
is already opened by pulseaudio.  The ALSA device null still works but
pulseaudio is started nonetheless!

To my knowledge, the only way to make ALSA usable again, is to put the
file '/usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.d/pulse.conf' aside, which requires
administrative privileges.  This is unacceptable since a normal user
should still have the option not to use pulseaudio.  I would suggest
that you devise a way to clear the config of 'pulse.conf' from a user
'.asoundrc' or disable the file 'pulse.conf' by default or maybe ask
about it in debconf.

Note that the function loaded by the afore-mentioned file is named
'conf_load_if_running', which suggests that it should load the files
that set pulse as the default ouput device only if pulseaudio is already
running, but in fact it starts pulseaudio itself.

PS. Please add to README.Debian an explanation of how to do disable
pulseaudio: how to disbale the autostart of the X session
(both system-wide and per user) and how to disable the automatic
switching of ALSA to pulseaudio.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.3
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (800, 'stable'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (300, 'testing'), (99, 'unstable'), (10, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages pulseaudio depends on:
ii  adduser                       3.113+nmu3
ii  consolekit                    0.4.5-3.1
ii  libasound2                    1.0.25-4
ii  libasound2-plugins            1.0.25-2
ii  libc6                         2.13-38
ii  libcap2                       1:2.22-1.2
ii  libdbus-1-3                   1.6.8-1+deb7u1
ii  libfftw3-3                    3.3.2-3.1
ii  libgcc1                       1:4.7.2-5
ii  libice6                       2:1.0.8-2
ii  libltdl7                      2.4.2-1.1
ii  liborc-0.4-0                  1:0.4.16-2
ii  libpulse0                     2.0-6.1
ii  libsamplerate0                0.1.8-5
ii  libsm6                        2:1.2.1-2
ii  libsndfile1                   1.0.25-5
ii  libspeexdsp1                  1.2~rc1-7
ii  libstdc++6                    4.7.2-5
ii  libsystemd-daemon0            44-11+deb7u4
ii  libsystemd-login0             44-11+deb7u4
ii  libtdb1                       1.2.10-2
ii  libudev0                      175-7.2
ii  libwebrtc-audio-processing-0  0.1-2
ii  libx11-6                      2:1.5.0-1+deb7u1
ii  libx11-xcb1                   2:1.5.0-1+deb7u1
ii  libxcb1                       1.8.1-2+deb7u1
ii  libxtst6                      2:1.2.1-1+deb7u1
ii  lsb-base                      4.1+Debian8+deb7u1
ii  udev                          175-7.2

Versions of packages pulseaudio recommends:
ii  gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio  0.10.31-3+nmu1
pn  pulseaudio-module-x11     <none>
pn  rtkit                     <none>

Versions of packages pulseaudio suggests:
ii  paman             0.9.4-1
ii  paprefs           0.9.10-1
ii  pavucontrol       1.0-1
ii  pavumeter         0.9.3-4
ii  pulseaudio-utils  2.0-6.1

-- no debconf information