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I'm running Debian Squeeze on my Lenovo Thinkpad X200 laptop, using the amd64 version so that I can make the most of the 64-bit CPU. However, I also need a range of 32-bit apps too for now, typically proprietary rubbish like the Flash plug-in for Firefox^WIceweasel. So I set up a 32-bit chroot with a small Debian installation in there too. (Roll on multi-arch!) That's been working ok for a while, except that I couldn't get working audio in my browser. I didn't really pay much attention to that until recently: I wanted to watch some videos on YouTube and the sound mattered!

After some digging, it became clear that Iceweasel inside the chroot just wasn't talking to the currently-running pulseaudio server outside the chroot. I had installed all the required libs in the chroot too, but still no joy. After some searching (thanks to the folks on the Archlinux wiki for this!) I've now been able to configure my chroot correctly. 2 bits needed:

1. Configure alsa in the chroot to use pulse by default by creating/editing /etc/asound.conf:

pcm.pulse {
    type pulse
}
ctl.pulse {
    type pulse
}
pcm.!default {
    type pulse
}
ctl.!default {
    type pulse
}

2. The dbus machine ID in the chroot needs to be the same as that of the main host, which it wasn't for me. That caused audio apps to report "connection refused" when I tested them. The machine ID is stored in /var/lib/dbus/machine-id. Either copy that file from the host system into the chroot, or add /var/lib/dbus as a bind-mount along with the usual suspects like /home and /tmp.

Job done, I can watch movie trailers etc. with sound in my browser. Yay! :-)

17:46 :: # :: /debian/misc :: 5 comments

Comments

Re: Using pulseaudio in a chroot
Daniel wrote on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:22

A bit offtopic of the pulse issue, but the 64-bit flash plugin beta works very well. http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html Way more stable on 64-bit.

Re: Re: Using pulseaudio in a chroot
Steve wrote on Sun, 14 Nov 2010 14:23

Meh, I gave up on the 64-bit flash player a while back when Adobe arbitrarily dropped it. Security "support" seems to be totally ad-hoc.

Plus, I've got other apps that work better in 32-bit like Skype *spit*

Re: Using pulseaudio in a chroot
Henrik Jess wrote on Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:06

I've have a ubuntu in chroot on a Debian host (LMDE) to get NetFlix working on linux. To have sound simultaneously I had to put the follow in /etc/rc.local (could be fstab).

mount -o bind /proc /var/chroot/quantal/proc mount -o bind /sys /var/chroot/quantal/sys mount -o bind /dev /var/chroot/quantal/dev mount -o bind /dev/pts /var/chroot/quantal/pts mount -o bind /dev/shm /var/chroot/quantal/dev/shm mount -o bind /proc /var/chroot/quantal/proc mount -o bind /proc/bus/usb /var/chroot/quantal/proc/bus/usb mount -o bind /sys /var/chroot/quantal/sys mount -o bind /tmp /var/chroot/quantal/tmp mount -o bind /var/run /var/chroot/quantal/var/run mount -o bind /var/lib/dbus /var/chroot/quanta /var/lib/dbus ## Sound issue

Might be helpfull for others... Thanks for sharing this.

Re: Using pulseaudio in a chroot
Henrik Jess wrote on Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:08

mount -o bind /proc /var/chroot/quantal/proc

mount -o bind /sys /var/chroot/quantal/sys

mount -o bind /dev /var/chroot/quantal/dev

mount -o bind /dev/pts /var/chroot/quantal/pts

mount -o bind /dev/shm /var/chroot/quantal/dev/shm

mount -o bind /proc /var/chroot/quantal/proc

mount -o bind /proc/bus/usb /var/chroot/quantal/proc/bus/usb

mount -o bind /sys /var/chroot/quantal/sys

mount -o bind /tmp /var/chroot/quantal/tmp

mount -o bind /var/run /var/chroot/quantal/var/run

mount -o bind /var/lib/dbus /var/chroot/quantal /var/lib/dbus ## Sound issue

(Repost - might be with CR this one.. Copy/paste)

Re: Using pulseaudio in a chroot
Divick wrote on Tue, 14 May 2013 02:53

Hey, this worked like a charm for me. I had been hunting around to get it working on my system. Thanks a lot Steve!

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