Don't like PulseAudio? Well… I hear you. Personally, it works for me, and it
makes it easier to switch between multiple audio inputs and outputs compared
to using plain ALSA. PulseAudio got off to a rocky start in the Linux world,
where it found itself adopted before it was ready (it was even billed on its
own website at the time as “the software that currently breaks your audio”).
It's my opinion that the reputation that PulseAudio acquired due to problems
back then isn't deserved any longer. If your hardware supports the sampling
rate of the audio data you're trying to play, PulseAudio will not resample it
(and if your hardware doesn't support that rate, resampling can hardly be
avoided). The increased latency has not been an issue here. Nevertheless, I
recognize that there are use cases where PulseAudio is still a detriment.
While I don't generally recommend removing PulseAudio, I'm not going to cram
it down your throat. So, if you'd like to be rid of PulseAudio, head over to
the new extra/pure-alsa-system directory and follow the instructions in the
README file there, and you'll have a PulseAudio-free pure ALSA system.
Thanks to orbea who sent me a small patch for the mpg123.SlackBuild so that
it would detect the lack of PulseAudio and not try to build in support, which
got me to thinking about all of this. Cheers!
Giuseppe Di Terlizzi