Textbook of Linux

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PulseAudio

A network-capable sound server.

PulseAudio sits between Linux applications and ALSA, the kernel-level audio subsystem. It mixes sound from multiple applications into the chosen output (so two apps can play sound at the same time without one of them blocking the other), lets the user choose audio sinks per stream, and routes audio over the network between machines or between an app and a Bluetooth headset.

Lennart Poettering started PulseAudio in 2004 (originally "Polypaudio") and led its development through its rise to become the standard desktop audio server on most Linux distributions in the late 2000s and 2010s. Its early reputation for being unreliable has long since been solved by years of hardening, but the perception persisted longer than the underlying problems.

PipeWire is now displacing PulseAudio on most modern desktop distributions while providing a PulseAudio-compatible API, so existing PulseAudio-aware applications work without modification. PulseAudio still ships as the audio server on many older or more-conservative distributions and remains a viable choice where it is known to work well.

Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install pulseaudio
Fedora/RHEL:   sudo dnf install pulseaudio
Arch:          sudo pacman -S pulseaudio