Re: pulseaudio, derivative problems

[Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk>]

On Wed 10 Aug 2016 at 13:23:08 -0400, Cindy-Sue Causey wrote:

> On 8/10/16, Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> wrote:
> > On Wed 10 Aug 2016 at 07:48:22 -0600, Levi Darrell wrote:
> >
> >> > It is not necessary for a user to be in the audio group these days.
> >> >
> >> >   ls -l /dev/snd/*
> >> >
> >> > shows all files have permissions crw-rw----+. The "+" sign indicates an
> >> > ACL (Access Control List). Then (as the user)
> >> >
> >> >   getfacl /dev/snd/*
> >> >
> >> > will show whether the user is on the List.
> >> >
> >> > It looks like my user has rw permissions for all those that are in the
> >> audio group.
> >
> > Your user has rw permissions to use sound devices. This is granted in
> > /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules. Being in the audio group is neither
> > here nor there.
> 
> 
> I've posted this before but will share again for the benefit of any
> new newcomers...
> 
> >From Debian's own wiki:
> 
> https://wiki.debian.org/SystemGroups

Quoting from it:

  audio: This group can be used locally to give a set of users
  access to an audio device (the soundcard or a microphone). 

Maybe it can but times have moved on. uaccess takes care of audio access
now. But, are there particular circumstances in which it does this?

An experiment: Remove a user from the audio group (I would use vigr).
Log out and back in. Can an audio CD still be played by the user? If not,
why not?

> Based on that wiki page, group "audio" is about granting access to
> 'audio devices" e.g. soundcards and microphones. Makes it sound like
> it's hardware centric, yes, no? :)

Whatever group "audio" is supposed to do, membership of it may be of no
great consequence. It depends.