Description:

I have both i3 and Gnome installed, and in i3 I most certainly do *not* want Pulseaudio to be running.
However, because /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/pulseaudio starts /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11 whenever $DESKTOP_SESSION isn't in gnome|kde*xfce* I invariably end up with Pulseaudio running.

There currently is no acceptable way of disabling Pulseaudio when not running any of the above DEs.

- Faking one of the above DEs can cause all kinds of trouble with other autostart .desktop files and applications
- Editing or removing /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/pulseaudio will be undone by any future upgrade of the pulseaudio package, because this file isn't listed as backup in the package.

I think users should have a way to reliably disable Pulseaudio even when they have installed this package. pulseaudio-alsa has a fallback to sysdefault in /etc/asound.conf, so plain ALSA should continue to work when Pulseaudio is disabled.

Also, users of 'exotic' DEs/WMs are probably savvy enough to manually start Pulseaudio when they need it, or use a tool like 'dex' to manage autostart of applications from .desktop files.

Please consider removing the script etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/pulseaudio entirely, or at least provide a way for users to disable Pulseaudio regardless of which DE/WM they are using.

Kind regards,

Alain Kalker
Additional info:
* package version(s)
* config and/or log files etc.


Steps to reproduce: