Linux – How to stream the GNU/Linux audio output to Android devices over WI-FI

audiodebiangnomelinuxpulse-audio

I want to stream my audio output over the network (Wi-Fi) to my Android devices. I'm not looking for a music/video streaming solution, but I would stream any audio output of my GNU/Linux desktop to my Android work like a bluetooth headphone.

My GNU/Linux desktop is Debian Wheezy and the sound is provided by pulseaudio.

I've tried Pulseaudio's raop module (and enabled it on paprefs) + Android's AirBuddle app, but the audio is not streamed (pulseaudio seens connect to AirBuddle, but the sound is not reproduced, there is a connection failure in some softwares, in some other softwares the sound is stucked).

Best Answer

There is a very simple solution because PulseAudio already has all the necessary tools.

  1. Get your source device name with command pactl list | grep Name

  2. Create the following script named pashare:

    #!/bin/sh
case "$1" in
  start)
    $0 stop 
    pactl load-module module-simple-protocol-tcp rate=48000 format=s16le channels=2 source=<source_name_here> record=true port=8000
    ;;
  stop)
    pactl unload-module `pactl list | grep tcp -B1 | grep M | sed 's/[^0-9]//g'`
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: $0 start|stop" >&2
    ;;
esac

  3. Make some checks and preparations (to allow script execution and check if the port successfully opened):

    chmod 755 pashare
./pashare start
netstat -nlt | grep 8000 
telnet 127.0.0.1 8000

  4. Download and install PulseDroid.apk

  5. Launch app on your phone; set the IP address to your computer and the port to 8000.

P.S. You can also check this Wiki page for general information on Pulseaudio network streaming, and this Wiki page about RTP streaming. Don't expect too much from streaming raw audio over WiFi; it takes enormous gobs of bandwidth. Even with a high-end wireless router/AP with a powerful signal I haven't been able to get more than stuttering audio out of it. Your best bet is probably to setup a proper media server (like Rygel, which works well with Pulseaudio) to transcode the raw audio to something like MP3 and stream that instead.

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