tree-wide: no pulseaudio by default #35041
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I am strongly against this change. This PR does not even make it easier to run a system without pulseaudio running. It just causes lots of unnecessary rebuilds if you want to use pulseaudio. I think that we should build packages with all optional dependencies included whenever possible so that it is possible to use the binary cache. In the case of pulseaudio, there is not even a big change in closure size. |
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+1 @gebner. Build-time variability is something we want to avoid since it results in either (a) end users having to build loads of stuff locally or (b) combinatorial explosions of what hydra has to build. This is why nixpkgs.config is avoided in most of nixpkgs. Applications built against pulseaudio can still run without pulseaudio if they have alsa support. If they don't have alsa support they weren't going to produce sound without pulse anyway. |
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Also since this causes a mass rebuild (over 500 packages affected on linux) this should be targetted to staging, not master |
Please elaborate. Running without pulseaudio is the default. What can be easier?
Well, maybe not in NixOS, but in SLNOS there is a big change, because pulseaudio libs require systemd, dbus and deps.
It is true that if you want to have pulseaudio you will have to rebuild some of packages yourself after this PR. I think this is a good thing, as it makes it harder to shoot yourself in the foot. |
Then I wholeheartedly encourage you to apply this change to SLNOS. Note that this PR in its current form will not remove libpulseaudio from that many closures (so not so much a "big change"), as it only covers a small portion of the uses of libpulseaudio. If you're intent on getting rid of it properly, you'll want to either remove it completely or find all other uses and make those conditional on the config too.
NixOS is not such an opinionated distro IME. |
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Right, the higher-tier SLNOS branch does exactly this (SLNOS is separated into tiers, from very NixOS-like experience where most of hydra cache still helps, to the very suckless system where you have to rebuild everything yourself). To be honest, in the current state of things I wouldn't merge this PR to NixOS myself (I made it to make a point that it is that easy to get 90% there with only trivial changes). What I would do is I would still disable libpulseaudio for all the leaf packages, but leave it enabled by default for libraries like libao and ffmpeg. This seems like a okay middle ground suitable for NixOS to me. We can discuss the finer points of this if anyone cares. |
Pulseaudio is already disabled by default, this PR changes nothing in this regard.
This is not acceptable since it causes unnecessary rebuilds, as discussed above. I think it's best to keep this change in SLNOS. |
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This is not acceptable since it causes unnecessary rebuilds, as discussed above.
Yes, can I see why bf426ad is a bad idea.
I don't see what is your argument against the rest.
Apps that can use both ALSA and pulseaudio generally don't need libpulseaudio even when you run pulseaudio daemon. They'll happily play sound through ALSA and pulseaudio daemon will happily take its audio from ALSA.
hardware.pulseaudio disabled? You get sound via ALSA.
hardware.pulseaudio enabled? You get sound via ALSA -> pulseaudio adapter.
Why do we need to build anything with libpulseaudio again? (Except some apps by crazy people which should be resolved on case-by-case basis.)
A single rebuild required to change those options to `false` is not an argument.
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I'm against this because of issues already mentioned here (mainly build variance). We need a better solution like the one outlined in #35292 (comment).
Motivation for this change
I run with
config.pulseaudio = falsefor years, it works perfectly.But having it enabled by default in some packages and disabled in others in nixpkgs sends a mixed message: many people think that you need this broken piece of insecure bloatware to have sound, which is as far from being true as humanly possible (see #29250).
Lets just disable it by default so that "its already in the closure, so lets add it proper" (see #24012, #35005) motivation goes away.
Also lets just disable it by default to minimize the attack surface it provides.
If you think you need it by default go read #29250. If you think its ok to have it by default go read #29250.
If you do use it, the second patch to nixos now enables it.
Things done
build-use-sandboxinnix.confon non-NixOS)nix-shell -p nox --run "nox-review wip"./result/bin/)./result/bin/)