!html

"""]]

First Steps

Simply start the PulseAudio daemon with the argument -nC:

[[!format txt """ pulseaudio -nC """]] This will present you a screen like this:

[[!format txt """ Welcome to PulseAudio! Use "help" for usage information.

"""]] Now you can issue CLI commands as described here. If you already have pulseaudio started use pacmd command to open the CLI. Another way to start pulseaudio is by specifying a configuration script like that one included in the distribution on the command line:

[[!format txt """ pulseaudio -nF pulseaudio.pa """]] This will load some drivers and protocols automatically.

The best idea is to configure your daemon in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and /etc/pulse/default.pa and to run pulseaudio without any arguments.

Beware! Unless you pass the option --sysconfdir=/etc to configure, the directory /etc/pulse/ is really /usr/local/etc/pulse/.

More information about available arguments and signals for the daemon can be found here.