Debian User Forums

Just for the users wishful to remain in the pure ALSA realm, there's this post in the Alsa-users:

[Alsa-user] sans-pulseaudio Firefox? was: a strange thing
https://www.mail-archive.com/alsa-user@ ... 31940.html

but more ...threats by ...particularly inclined Mozilla devs have been voiced on the aforebrought Mozilla bug page:

Require PulseAudio to play sound on Linux
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.c ... 47056#c178

where notice the "Target: Firefox52" is the news. Was previously deemed to need to be reached by Firefox46, IIUC.

Regards!

To build this Firefox you still need to install Pulse, otherwise the build will fail. That sucks.

idk; can't you then uninstall it again after compiling?
a so-called makedepend?

Lets wait and see what happens. There are people interested in cleaning up the code and get the PA calls out. Even if this means no sound in FF.

fwiw, i'm not 100% happy with FF either, the way it's going, but there just doesn't seem to be 1 browser to rule them all, they all have their dis/advantages...

(and this is NOT meant as an invitation to start recommending what somebody perceives is THE best browser EVER)

That going to be bad. I tried other distro not just Debian based. I actually installed pulse audio which was available through there repository. It conflicted with the current audio & you couldn't uninstall the default without breaking your system. Firefox is supposed to have an unbranded release version (Not iceweasel), what every happen to that? Would that have the same requirement?

groze wrote:That going to be bad. I tried other distro not just Debian based. I actually installed pulse audio which was available through there repository. It conflicted with the current audio & you couldn't uninstall the default without breaking your system. Firefox is supposed to have an unbranded release version (Not iceweasel), what every happen to that? Would that have the same requirement?

Current firefox release is version 51 and it works without pulse ( at least if you download the binary from mozilla than extract or install it on your system )
base url for the mozilla binaries is http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/
current releases
32 bit http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/rele ... inux-i686/
choose your locale: example en-US/
firefox-51.0.tar.bz2
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/rele ... .0.tar.bz2

64 bit http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/rele ... ux-x96_64/
grab your locale: example fi/
firefox-51.0.tar.bz2
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/rele ... .0.tar.bz2

nightly 52 also works on my debian boxes when downloading binaries this way as well

version 52 first release day ( this one works without pulse - at least on my debian installs )
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nigh ... a-central/

version 52 last release day ( this one might require pulse - you'll have to test it and see )
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nigh ... a-central/

eventually the stable release will require pulse too, UNLESS the mozilla devs come to their senses.

folks, no unfounded panic please.

firefox is in many distros' repos and does not need pulseaudio.

here are archlinux version's dependencies:

Code: Select all

Name            : firefox
Version         : 51.0.1-1
Depends On      : gtk3  gtk2  mozilla-common  libxt  startup-notification  mime-types  dbus-glib
                  alsa-lib  ffmpeg  libvpx  libevent  nss  hunspell  sqlite  ttf-font  icu

looking at firefox nightly dependencies:

Code: Select all

firefox-aurora 53.0a2.20170210084046-1  (2017-02-10 16:28)
==> firefox-aurora dependencies:
 - gtk3 (already installed)
 - libxt (already installed)
 - startup-notification (already installed)
 - mime-types (already installed)
 - dbus-glib (already installed)
 - alsa-lib (already installed)
 - dbus-glib (already installed)
 - libnotify (already installed)
 - desktop-file-utils (already installed)
 - hicolor-icon-theme (already installed)
 - libvpx (already installed)
 - libevent (already installed)
 - nss>=3.14.1 (already installed)
 - hunspell (already installed)

whatever little truth the rumour is based on, it's not like the title says.

i tried to make sense of the bug report, but couldn't. too much noise.

According to Mozilla the ALSA code is unsupported, although it is currently building fine it may break in the future and it won't be fixed.

can you back that with some info?
i guess the info is in that bug report?
could you please point the relevant sections out.

No I do not remember where I read it, but I certainly did. Up to you, believe or not.

debiman wrote:whatever little truth the rumour is based on, it's not like the title says.

i tried to make sense of the bug report, but couldn't. too much noise.

Might help if you actually read the bug report. The original title was saying Firefox would require PulseAudio, since then it has changed to "Require PulseAudio to play sound on Linux".

Gerald Squelart at Mozilla said 2016-11-28

Thank you Miroslav, I've updated the bug title to clarify that PulseAudio is required *to play sound* on Linux.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.c ... 47056#c172

Anthony Jones at Mozilla said 2016-12-15

ALSA support is dropped from Firefox 52 onward.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.c ... 47056#c178

The Alsa code is still there but you'll have to compile the code with --enable-alsa and maybe --disable-pulseaudio. So it's possible, but it's up to the maintainers if they decide to follow the official route or not. Mozilla wont work on Alsa fixes though.

sjukfan wrote:Anthony Jones at Mozilla said 2016-12-15

ALSA support is dropped from Firefox 52 onward.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.c ... 47056#c178

The Alsa code is still there but you'll have to compile the code with --enable-alsa and maybe --disable-pulseaudio. So it's possible, but it's up to the maintainers if they decide to follow the official route or not. Mozilla wont work on Alsa fixes though.

this is the bit of hard info i was looking for. thanks.
my archlinux' (without pulseaudio) firefox is on 51.something now.
we'll see what happens when it hits 52; I can only hope arch devs are sane enough to use the --enable-alsa switch.

debiman wrote:folks, no unfounded panic please.

firefox is in many distros' repos and does not need pulseaudio.

*snip*

whatever little truth the rumour is based on, it's not like the title says.

i tried to make sense of the bug report, but couldn't. too much noise.

It's not unfounded panic, it's not a rumour, it's official announcement from Mozilla : "From Firefox 52 onwards, pulseaudio is a hard requirement for sound on linux. Alsa is unsupported and alsa code will be removed in Firefox 54." All this is written on the bug report you failed to make sense of.

Firefox 52 has just been released and the issue is now live and kicking.

debiman wrote:can you back that with some info?
i guess the info is in that bug report?
could you please point the relevant sections out.

From this Arch bug report[1] about the issue, it seems that the upcoming Firefox sandbox feature breaks Alsa. Alsa code will stay in Firefox unsupported until its removal in Firefox 54. In the meantime there is a build time flag --enable-alsa to compile Firefox with alsa support.

From the Mozilla bug, OP states without substantiating that this move is made to reduce the problems and maintenance associated with maintaining multiple audio backends. Then says "The point is to avoid people accidentally not installing Pulse Audio and having a broken/poor playback experience." without explaining why it would be so. Others argue that "Making it a hard dependency makes the choice "install libpulse or don't use Firefox", rather than "install libpulse otherwise you won't have sound in Firefox"."

About 75% of the sound issues I've experienced in Linux over the years were solved by uninstalling pulseaudio to use alsa, to me this is trying to fix something that's not broken and I fall precisely in the "install libpulse or don't use Firefox" case. So I guess I'll pin Firefox to v51 while I decide which other web browser to use.

Then after the release of Firefox 52 this "feature" grabbed the attention of users unhappy with this move and after two complaints in the bug report the comments have been restricted.

[1]: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/53195

debuf wrote:Firefox 52 has just been released and the issue is now live and kicking.

And there is no PulseAudio dependency:

https://packages.debian.org/sid/firefox

So... just FUD then?

EDIT: also, heftig has marked that Arch bug report as "Fixed" and there appears to be no PA dependency in the Arch package either:

https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extr ... 4/firefox/