How do ALSA and PulseAudio relate?

Posted by Hanno Fietz on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Hanno Fietz
Published on 2010-05-24T12:05:26Z Indexed on 2010/05/24 12:11 UTC
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linux

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sound

While trying to get my sound to work, I was wondering about the roles of ALSA and PulseAudio. I have both installed and was wondering, for example, which of them needs to know about my sound card.

Both seem to be able to use each other, there's a pulseaudio plugin for ALSA, and on my system, alsa shows up as a sound card in pulseaudio.

Which of the two does what, are they alternatives or complementary?

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