You'll need the following apps installed to make it work:

sudo apt-get install pavucontrol paprefs padevchooser

I would recommend the padevchooser tray application to work with PulseAudio - it provides easy access to all configuration dialogs. In the tray app menu, click on Configure local sound server to start paprefs without commandline. Or click on Volume Control… to start the pavucontrol application easily.

Start the paprefs application and open the Network Access tab of it.

• Check Enable network access to local sound devices
• Check Allow other machines on the LAN to discover local sound devices

In the Multicast/RTP tab

• Check Enable Multicast/RTP sender and go on with:

If your sound server plays his own stream through his speakers, then it should use its own network stream (loopback) instead of the sound from the original audio device. Otherwise there is a slight delay between the audio streams on client and server. So this doesn't really

• Select Create separate audio device for Multicast/RTP
• Check Loopback audio to local speakers
• Check Enable Multicast/RTP Receiver (to allow loopback)
• Start the sound on your application, let's say, play a song on Amarok
• Then open pavucontrol and on the Playback tab, right click on the audio stream (e.g. Amarok) and click on Move Stream… and then on RTP Multicast Sink

If you dont't care about the latency between server and clients, just select this instead:

• Send audio from local speakers

Again open the Network Access tab of the PulseAudio Preferences (paprefs).

• Check the Make discoverable network sound devices available locally option

In the Multicast/RTP tab

• Check Enable Multicast/RTP receiver

Now you should hear the sound streamed from your server.

In case you have any problems, maybe the PulseAudio PerfectSetup Tutorial will help. Let me know if you have a fix :D.

PulseAudio is also available for Solaris, FreeBSD and (last but least) Windows; A pulseaudio.pa config file has to be put into the PulseAudio installation directory where the stream source is configured. Please follow the PA FAQ: HowTo Stream to a Windows Box.