Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Roman Dobosz]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:55:01 +0200
pk pete...@coolmail.se wrote:

 Xmms, I believe it's called. And it's been working fine for quite a
 while (I've actually have never encountered a bug with Audacious), for
 me. Now, when I upgraded to 2.4.x dbus was forced on me (well, that and
 Xfce4)... I'm used to Audacious because I like the simple interface
 (non-gtk+). But if you have another player you would like to recommend
 I'll gladly try it. Requirements: no gconf/gnome/udev/udisk(etc.)
 dependency (only sane dependencies like libogg/flac etc., possibly gtk
 or qt for ui but nothing else), simple UI (like Audacious legacy mode),
 no singin' and dancing crap (simplicity over features)...

For just playing music task I'm using moc[1] or deadbeef[2]. First
one is cute little player with ncurses interface, other is simple
foobar-like GTK player. Outside my headphones there can be heard
what mpd[3] is currently playing (on second sound card).

[1] http://moc.daper.net
[2] http://deadbeef.sourceforge.net
[3] http://mpd.wikia.com

-- 
  -^-  _coś tam w tle sobie gra, np:
   _ /O)_\//Suicide Commando
  (_(|__(_(_) grf.   - Stored Images (1995) - Actions Of The Mind

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Montag 19 September 2011, 20:20:35 schrieb Walter Dnes:
 On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 10:48:10PM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote
 
  alsaplayer. Can't even get more simplistic. You don't even have to run a
  daemon or server. Just playing music.
 
   Or mpg321 or mpg123, both of which are commandline programs.

well, both can't do playlists - and there ability to play sound very slow or 
backwards is limited ;)

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Alex Schuster]

Volker Armin Hemmann writes:

 Am Montag 19 September 2011, 20:20:35 schrieb Walter Dnes:
  On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 10:48:10PM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote
  
   alsaplayer. Can't even get more simplistic. You don't even have to
   run a daemon or server. Just playing music.
  
Or mpg321 or mpg123, both of which are commandline programs.
 
 well, both can't do playlists

They do, with option -@ file.

 and there ability to play sound very slow or backwards is limited ;)

Well... but I'd miss stopping sound (okaaayy... Ctrl-Z and fg), skipping
tracks, or going back in the playlist.

And, as an Amarok user... searching my collection, finding song texts,
rating songs, wikipedia information for artist, album or a specfic song,
tagging, easy sorting of playlists, bookmarks, saving streams to disk,
global shortcuts.

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Thanasis]

on 09/20/2011 07:50 PM Volker Armin Hemmann wrote the following:
 Am Montag 19 September 2011, 20:20:35 schrieb Walter Dnes:
 On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 10:48:10PM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote

 alsaplayer. Can't even get more simplistic. You don't even have to run a
 daemon or server. Just playing music.

   Or mpg321 or mpg123, both of which are commandline programs.
 
 well, both can't do playlists - and there ability to play sound very slow or 
 backwards is limited ;)
 

I know mpg321 can do playlists like so:

mpg123 --list file

quote from its man page:
-@ file, --list file
  Read filenames and/or URLs of MPEG audio streams from the
specified file in addition to the ones specified on the command  line
(if  any).  Note that file can be either an ordinary file, a dash ``-''
to indicate that a list of filenames/URLs is to be read from the
standard input, or an URL pointing to a an appropriate list file.  Note:
only one -@ option can be used (if more  than one is specified, only the
last one will be recognized).

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Michael Mol]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 1:10 PM, Alex Schuster wo...@wonkology.org wrote:
 Volker Armin Hemmann writes:

 Am Montag 19 September 2011, 20:20:35 schrieb Walter Dnes:
  On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 10:48:10PM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote
 
   alsaplayer. Can't even get more simplistic. You don't even have to
   run a daemon or server. Just playing music.
 
    Or mpg321 or mpg123, both of which are commandline programs.

 well, both can't do playlists

 They do, with option -@ file.

 and there ability to play sound very slow or backwards is limited ;)

 Well... but I'd miss stopping sound (okaaayy... Ctrl-Z and fg), skipping
 tracks, or going back in the playlist.

 And, as an Amarok user... searching my collection, finding song texts,
 rating songs, wikipedia information for artist, album or a specfic song,
 tagging, easy sorting of playlists, bookmarks, saving streams to disk,
 global shortcuts.

I've never had good success with amarok. (Or any other rich-featured
past a gnome one I can't recall the name of right now)


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Dienstag 20 September 2011, 20:19:44 schrieb Thanasis:
 on 09/20/2011 07:50 PM Volker Armin Hemmann wrote the following:
  Am Montag 19 September 2011, 20:20:35 schrieb Walter Dnes:
  On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 10:48:10PM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote
  
  alsaplayer. Can't even get more simplistic. You don't even have to
  run a daemon or server. Just playing music.
  
Or mpg321 or mpg123, both of which are commandline programs.
  
  well, both can't do playlists - and there ability to play sound very
  slow or backwards is limited ;)
 
 I know mpg321 can do playlists like so:
 
 mpg123 --list file
 
 quote from its man page:
 -@ file, --list file
   Read filenames and/or URLs of MPEG audio streams from the
 specified file in addition to the ones specified on the command  line
 (if  any).  Note that file can be either an ordinary file, a dash ``-''
 to indicate that a list of filenames/URLs is to be read from the
 standard input, or an URL pointing to a an appropriate list file.  Note:
 only one -@ option can be used (if more  than one is specified, only the
 last one will be recognized).

thanks, didn't know that - but... I never found any need for that. 
alsaplayer/vlc/amarok are pretty much all I need.

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 10:28 AM, Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 1:10 PM, Alex Schuster wo...@wonkology.org wrote:
 Volker Armin Hemmann writes:

 Am Montag 19 September 2011, 20:20:35 schrieb Walter Dnes:
  On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 10:48:10PM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote
 
   alsaplayer. Can't even get more simplistic. You don't even have to
   run a daemon or server. Just playing music.
 
    Or mpg321 or mpg123, both of which are commandline programs.

 well, both can't do playlists

 They do, with option -@ file.

 and there ability to play sound very slow or backwards is limited ;)

 Well... but I'd miss stopping sound (okaaayy... Ctrl-Z and fg), skipping
 tracks, or going back in the playlist.

 And, as an Amarok user... searching my collection, finding song texts,
 rating songs, wikipedia information for artist, album or a specfic song,
 tagging, easy sorting of playlists, bookmarks, saving streams to disk,
 global shortcuts.

 I've never had good success with amarok. (Or any other rich-featured
 past a gnome one I can't recall the name of right now)


I used Aqualung for a long time, and it worked well, but it eventually
became fairly difficult for me to keep up. I'm now ashamed to say I'm
completely converted to iTunes in a Windows XP VM. Well supported by
Apple and interfaces with external hardware things around the house.

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Alex Schuster]

Michael Mol writes:

 On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 1:10 PM, Alex Schuster wo...@wonkology.org
 wrote:

  And, as an Amarok user... searching my collection, finding song texts,
  rating songs, wikipedia information for artist, album or a specfic
  song, tagging, easy sorting of playlists, bookmarks, saving streams
  to disk, global shortcuts.
 
 I've never had good success with amarok. (Or any other rich-featured
 past a gnome one I can't recall the name of right now)

I was a happy user in the KDE 3.5 days, but in KDE4 I also had big
trouble, mainly with huuuge startup times and corruption of the
collection. And lots of crashes and small annoyances. But for about a
year now, it is much more stable, and works quite well for me. Little
problems happen from time to time, but I really like this player, so I
live with them. I got used to many features, and would not like to change
to another player.

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Paul Colquhoun]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:31:56 AM Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:


 Just don't expect everybody to run our systems without the modern
 parts of the stack just because a Commodore 64 cannot run it.
 
 Many of us actually like the modern features of the kernel, glibc,
 udev, dbus, systemd, pulseaudio, glib, X.org, GStreamer, Gtk+ and
 GNOME (or Qt and KDE). In my case (and I have used Linux for a long
 time), the whole stack looks full of awsomeness, and stuff just works
 most of the time.
 
 So yeah, we use more CPU cycles, more memory and more hard drive. From
 my POV, we get more than that in new and improved functionality.


Just don't forget that the desktop isn't the whole world, and allow the 
backroom server guys to turn off all the bells, whistles and pretty lights so 
they can get the best performance from their web servers, mail servers, DNS 
servers, etc.


-- 
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC.http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
 Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes.
Then, when you do, you'll be a mile away, and you'll have their shoes.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[pk]

On 2011-09-18 21:52, Michael Mol wrote:

 The kernel configuration process is actually very nice and very easy.
 You an remove any features you don't want or need. (I'm referring to,
 e.g. menuconfig. I haven't really used genkernel)

I've never used genkernel and always compile my own kernels...

 FWIW, PulseAudio predates Windows Vista, Windows 7, even MacOS X. I
 ran it on a 200MHz machine back when it was called Enlightenment Sound
 Daemon.

Hm... I've used ESD (years and years ago :-) ) in OSS times. Not sure
where the connection between ESD and Pulseaudio is though[1]... Well,
anywho, Gentoo stopped supporting both the ESD and arts server years ago
for security reasons IIRC.

 With as much as I've poked at PulseAudio, I'd have to say I like it
 better than I like the Vista/Win7 implementation of sound daemons.

I've no experience with Vista/Win7 (I've got an XP machine for gaming).

 There's probably not much one can do with PA that one couldn't do with
 jackd, which is probably better in terms of latency, but I never got
 around to learning jackd.

Yes, tried jack a few years ago but couldn't get it working right. Not
that I got burnt by it (as dbus etc.) and if the need arise, I'll look
into it again... Thing is, ALSA already have a (simple) sound server
built in called dmix so why one would bother with Pulseaudio is beyond
me (but as long as it's not forced onto users I don't care much about it).

 While I was using PA (I'm not, currently), it was nice for being able
 to monitor and tune the volume levels of individual programs. That can
 be important when trying to manage two different VOIP apps, video
 games and Pandora at the same time.

If you wish to use it then do so... :-)

The thing (idea) I was trying to convey but seems to escape most people
is this:
Cut out the fat! - Less is more/do more with less [resources] etc...
in a general sense. That's what Contiki is doing and what I think
software in general should be doing (yes, in Utopia)... When adding
layer upon layer, we are going in the wrong direction (unless the sum is
less, which it, in my eyes, seems not to be).

[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Enlightened_Sound_Daemon

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 12:23 PM, pk pete...@coolmail.se wrote:
 On 2011-09-18 21:52, Michael Mol wrote:

 The kernel configuration process is actually very nice and very easy.
 You an remove any features you don't want or need. (I'm referring to,
 e.g. menuconfig. I haven't really used genkernel)

 I've never used genkernel and always compile my own kernels...

 FWIW, PulseAudio predates Windows Vista, Windows 7, even MacOS X. I
 ran it on a 200MHz machine back when it was called Enlightenment Sound
 Daemon.

 Hm... I've used ESD (years and years ago :-) ) in OSS times. Not sure
 where the connection between ESD and Pulseaudio is though[1]... Well,
 anywho, Gentoo stopped supporting both the ESD and arts server years ago
 for security reasons IIRC.
 [1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Enlightened_Sound_Daemon

My recollection at the time PA started showing up was that PA was the
descendant of ESD. I assumed it was a fork. I may be wrong.

 With as much as I've poked at PulseAudio, I'd have to say I like it
 better than I like the Vista/Win7 implementation of sound daemons.

 I've no experience with Vista/Win7 (I've got an XP machine for gaming).

Windows coding is my day job. Workstation is Win7 Ultimate x64.


 There's probably not much one can do with PA that one couldn't do with
 jackd, which is probably better in terms of latency, but I never got
 around to learning jackd.

 Yes, tried jack a few years ago but couldn't get it working right. Not
 that I got burnt by it (as dbus etc.) and if the need arise, I'll look
 into it again... Thing is, ALSA already have a (simple) sound server
 built in called dmix so why one would bother with Pulseaudio is beyond
 me (but as long as it's not forced onto users I don't care much about it).

I recall reading about dmix in LinuxJournal years ago, but I don't
think I ever got around to setting it up; ALSA was just going through
a major API change around 0.9, and I didn't have the resources to stay
up-to-date. (Dial-up was a pain. I imagine it's worse today) I did
have fantasies about using it to set up a fake sound device to get
spatial audio over headphones. I couldn't find the data set I'd needed
for calculating delays, though.


 While I was using PA (I'm not, currently), it was nice for being able
 to monitor and tune the volume levels of individual programs. That can
 be important when trying to manage two different VOIP apps, video
 games and Pandora at the same time.

 If you wish to use it then do so... :-)

 The thing (idea) I was trying to convey but seems to escape most people
 is this:
 Cut out the fat! - Less is more/do more with less [resources] etc...
 in a general sense. That's what Contiki is doing and what I think
 software in general should be doing (yes, in Utopia)... When adding
 layer upon layer, we are going in the wrong direction (unless the sum is
 less, which it, in my eyes, seems not to be).

Oh, certainly. That's one of the reasons I love Linux's (and
especially Gentoo's) modularity so much; there's often a nearly-ideal
tool for any given use case. That's part of why I don't like to see
things which break that modularity become mandatory.


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 18:55:01 schrieb pk:
 On 2011-09-18 14:56, Alan McKinnon wrote:
  And he's using Audacious - a fork of a gigantic bug nest (mms) .
  According to his earlier post, it forces dbus to run.
 
 Xmms, I believe it's called. And it's been working fine for quite a
 while (I've actually have never encountered a bug with Audacious), for
 me. Now, when I upgraded to 2.4.x dbus was forced on me (well, that and
 Xfce4)... I'm used to Audacious because I like the simple interface
 (non-gtk+). But if you have another player you would like to recommend
 I'll gladly try it. Requirements: no gconf/gnome/udev/udisk(etc.)
 dependency (only sane dependencies like libogg/flac etc., possibly gtk
 or qt for ui but nothing else), simple UI (like Audacious legacy mode),
 no singin' and dancing crap (simplicity over features)...

alsaplayer. Can't even get more simplistic. You don't even have to run a 
daemon or server. Just playing music.

--
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 09:58:10 schrieb Michael Mol:
 On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann
 
 volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:
  Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 15:19:29 schrieb pk:
  again, if it you say 'it must be bad because there is a bug in it' you
  can disregard all software ever written.
 
 This is why, when designing systems, you want as little complexity as
 possible; the greater the complexity, the greater the incidence of
 bugs. Yes, it's unavoidable that there are bugs, but lower bug counts
 are better.
 
 (Not making a specific argument against D-Bus here, just the rhetorical
 device.)

yeah and if you simplified your system enough it is so hard to use it is not 
worth the time you waste on it.

Every problem can be solved by another layer of abstraction

A similar good sounding quote - but.
-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 15:52:16 schrieb Michael Mol:
 On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 1:43 PM, pk pete...@coolmail.se wrote:
  I think you need to take a closer look; it does support a lot of
  modern parts of the stack (as you call it); it's just focused on the
  things that matters (for an embedded system). It is the mindset that I'm
  after; it seems even kernel developers are thinking oh, we have so much
  memory here so it doesn't matter if we use a few GB here (yes, I'm
  exaggerating). Intel and AMD can't increase the clocks anymore so
  they've started to throw more hardware on the ever increasing demand for
  computing power... there will be a time when the bloat will take it's
  toll on more users.
 
 The kernel configuration process is actually very nice and very easy.
 You an remove any features you don't want or need. (I'm referring to,
 e.g. menuconfig. I haven't really used genkernel)
 
 The first time's the hardest. After you know what parts you need for a
 given box, it's easy.
 
  Many of us actually like the modern features of the kernel, glibc,
  udev, dbus, systemd, pulseaudio, glib, X.org, GStreamer, Gtk+ and
  
  There's a lot of people that like Windows 7 and MacOS X too, I hear.
  What the ultimate goal (in my view) for systemd, pulseaudio etc. seems
  to be is to mimic (poorly) the mentioned OS's.
 
 FWIW, PulseAudio predates Windows Vista, Windows 7, even MacOS X. I
 ran it on a 200MHz machine back when it was called Enlightenment Sound
 Daemon.

Pulseaudio was meant to be a drop in replacement for ESD but AFAIK that is 
where the common grounds end. Pulseaudio was not ESD and ESD is not 
Pulseaudio.

Plus ESD has/had a less than good reputation to say it politely.

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Montag 19 September 2011, 16:21:08 schrieb Paul Colquhoun:
 On Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:31:56 AM Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
  Just don't expect everybody to run our systems without the modern
  parts of the stack just because a Commodore 64 cannot run it.
  
  Many of us actually like the modern features of the kernel, glibc,
  udev, dbus, systemd, pulseaudio, glib, X.org, GStreamer, Gtk+ and
  GNOME (or Qt and KDE). In my case (and I have used Linux for a long
  time), the whole stack looks full of awsomeness, and stuff just works
  most of the time.
  
  So yeah, we use more CPU cycles, more memory and more hard drive. From
  my POV, we get more than that in new and improved functionality.
 
 Just don't forget that the desktop isn't the whole world, and allow the
 backroom server guys to turn off all the bells, whistles and pretty lights
 so they can get the best performance from their web servers, mail servers,
 DNS servers, etc.

there are at least two kinds of servers - those who don't need bells and 
whistles and run happily on an intel atom.

And those who really do need bells and whistles. I am sure you wouldn't want 
to build such from scratch.

Luckily as a desktop linux user I do not have to care about those guys. And 
these guys don't have to care about me. Isn't that great?

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Michael Mol]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 5:07 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:
 Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 09:58:10 schrieb Michael Mol:
 On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann

 volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:
  Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 15:19:29 schrieb pk:
  again, if it you say 'it must be bad because there is a bug in it' you
  can disregard all software ever written.

 This is why, when designing systems, you want as little complexity as
 possible; the greater the complexity, the greater the incidence of
 bugs. Yes, it's unavoidable that there are bugs, but lower bug counts
 are better.

 (Not making a specific argument against D-Bus here, just the rhetorical
 device.)

 yeah and if you simplified your system enough it is so hard to use it is not
 worth the time you waste on it.

And if you solve every problem with another layer or patch to mask
complexity cases, you haven't usually eliminated edge cases, you've
only moved them to somewhere discounted or (worse) undiscovered. You
*certainly* haven't reduced system complexity.


 Every problem can be solved by another layer of abstraction

Any problem in computer science can be solved with another layer of
indirection, but that usually will create another problem. - David
Wheeler

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Montag 19 September 2011, 12:37:16 schrieb Michael Mol:

 I recall reading about dmix in LinuxJournal years ago, but I don't
 think I ever got around to setting it up; 

you don't set it up. It just works. If your sound card does not do hardware 
mixing (onboard sound doesn't) you are using dmix.

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:42 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:
 Am Montag 19 September 2011, 12:37:16 schrieb Michael Mol:

 I recall reading about dmix in LinuxJournal years ago, but I don't
 think I ever got around to setting it up;

 you don't set it up. It just works. If your sound card does not do hardware
 mixing (onboard sound doesn't) you are using dmix.

Ah. As I said, I hadn't poked or researched dmix since I read about it
in LinuxJournal. Pretty sure that particular issue came out over ten
years ago.

That doesn't quite jive with my experience with apps some apps
managing to take exclusive control over sound devices. In particular,
if, e.g. Flash were run under Firefox before WINE or PulseAudio, then
the latter two didn't get to play.*



* Yes, I know (and have used) the solutions to these kinds of problems
when using PA. That's beside the point.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Alan McKinnon]

On Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:02:39 -0400
Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:42 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
 volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:
  Am Montag 19 September 2011, 12:37:16 schrieb Michael Mol:
 
  I recall reading about dmix in LinuxJournal years ago, but I don't
  think I ever got around to setting it up;
 
  you don't set it up. It just works. If your sound card does not do
  hardware mixing (onboard sound doesn't) you are using dmix.
 
 Ah. As I said, I hadn't poked or researched dmix since I read about it
 in LinuxJournal. Pretty sure that particular issue came out over ten
 years ago.
 
 That doesn't quite jive with my experience with apps some apps
 managing to take exclusive control over sound devices. In particular,
 if, e.g. Flash were run under Firefox before WINE or PulseAudio, then
 the latter two didn't get to play.*

Flash isn't a good example though. It just assumes that it is the most
important (only?) thing in the universe, and tries to take over the
hardware for itself. If I read recent blogs correctly, even Windows
users suffer from the same thing with Flash.

I think the presumption in this thread in that sound apps make *some*
attempt to play nicely - Flash doesn't fit that category. The only
category it fits is useless crap that should either be deleted or only
used when absolutely necessary





-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2011 23:06:18 +0200
Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:

  FWIW, PulseAudio predates Windows Vista, Windows 7, even MacOS X. I
  ran it on a 200MHz machine back when it was called Enlightenment
  Sound Daemon.  
 
 Pulseaudio was meant to be a drop in replacement for ESD but AFAIK
 that is where the common grounds end. Pulseaudio was not ESD and ESD
 is not Pulseaudio.
 
 Plus ESD has/had a less than good reputation to say it politely.

And that brings us to today's trick question of the day, boys and girls:

Which is worse? ESD or aRTS?


I swear, with each passing day I become more and more convinced that
audio and printing are the two ultimately unsolveable computer science
problems. They only seem to ever work at all in a walled garden.


-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 3:20 PM, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:02:39 -0400
 Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:42 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
 volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:
  Am Montag 19 September 2011, 12:37:16 schrieb Michael Mol:
 
  I recall reading about dmix in LinuxJournal years ago, but I don't
  think I ever got around to setting it up;
 
  you don't set it up. It just works. If your sound card does not do
  hardware mixing (onboard sound doesn't) you are using dmix.

 Ah. As I said, I hadn't poked or researched dmix since I read about it
 in LinuxJournal. Pretty sure that particular issue came out over ten
 years ago.

 That doesn't quite jive with my experience with apps some apps
 managing to take exclusive control over sound devices. In particular,
 if, e.g. Flash were run under Firefox before WINE or PulseAudio, then
 the latter two didn't get to play.*

 Flash isn't a good example though. It just assumes that it is the most
 important (only?) thing in the universe, and tries to take over the
 hardware for itself. If I read recent blogs correctly, even Windows
 users suffer from the same thing with Flash.

Audio, I don't *think* so. At the very least, Vista and 7 allow you to
configure whether or not applications are allowed to take exclusive
control over a device.

Video inputs, yes.


 I think the presumption in this thread in that sound apps make *some*
 attempt to play nicely - Flash doesn't fit that category. The only
 category it fits is useless crap that should either be deleted or only
 used when absolutely necessary

That actually makes for a really good argument to use something like
PA's ALSA wrapper when you can't do without Flash. I hear recent
versions of Flash support PA directly.

I can see an argument for Flash wanting control over A/V hardware;
audio and video recorders have been implemented in it. Flash, IME,
doesn't grab A/V until a Flash applet access them, but it also doesn't
let them go. Perhaps their internal VM is poorly defined such that
it's OK for apps to assume that once they have a resource, it's always
there, and they're stuck maintaining that VM model for compatibility.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Montag 19 September 2011, 21:20:30 schrieb Alan McKinnon:
 On Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:02:39 -0400
 
 Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote:
  On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:42 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
  
  volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:
   Am Montag 19 September 2011, 12:37:16 schrieb Michael Mol:
   I recall reading about dmix in LinuxJournal years ago, but I don't
   think I ever got around to setting it up;
   
   you don't set it up. It just works. If your sound card does not do
   hardware mixing (onboard sound doesn't) you are using dmix.
  
  Ah. As I said, I hadn't poked or researched dmix since I read about it
  in LinuxJournal. Pretty sure that particular issue came out over ten
  years ago.
  
  That doesn't quite jive with my experience with apps some apps
  managing to take exclusive control over sound devices. In particular,
  if, e.g. Flash were run under Firefox before WINE or PulseAudio, then
  the latter two didn't get to play.*
 
 Flash isn't a good example though. It just assumes that it is the most
 important (only?) thing in the universe, and tries to take over the
 hardware for itself. If I read recent blogs correctly, even Windows
 users suffer from the same thing with Flash.
 
 I think the presumption in this thread in that sound apps make *some*
 attempt to play nicely - Flash doesn't fit that category. The only
 category it fits is useless crap that should either be deleted or only
 used when absolutely necessary

I am sure that I am able to listen to sound from flash and vlc at the same 
time.

I am using a sound card with hardware mixing tho.
-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Neil Bothwick]

On Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:02:39 -0400, Michael Mol wrote:

  you don't set it up. It just works. If your sound card does not do
  hardware mixing (onboard sound doesn't) you are using dmix.  
 
 Ah. As I said, I hadn't poked or researched dmix since I read about it
 in LinuxJournal. Pretty sure that particular issue came out over ten
 years ago.

Ten years ago, you did have to set up software mixing in ALSA manually.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

What did the first man to discover you can get milk from cows think he
was doing? - anon.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Walter Dnes]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 10:48:10PM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote

 alsaplayer. Can't even get more simplistic. You don't even have to run a 
 daemon or server. Just playing music.

  Or mpg321 or mpg123, both of which are commandline programs.

-- 
Walter Dnes waltd...@waltdnes.org

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[pk]

On 2011-09-18 09:37, Alan McKinnon wrote:

 Other systems may start to use it if it proves itself useful. Lucky for
 us, it doesn't obsolete anything else, just adds functionality to what
 is already there. 

Although, one thing which I find very annoying is that the things that
depend on it starts dbus-launch/daemon no matter if I don't want to run
it or not (it's not running acc. to rc-update show but ps -ef shows both
dbus-launch and dbus-daemon running). I'm using Xfce4 and have Audacious
installed which depends on dbus-glib, which of course depends on dbus
itself. No other packages uses it (USE= -dbus). Xfce4 and Audacious
hasn't used dbus before a certain version (at least it has not been
mandatory) and I've been using them for years (haven't had the time to
look for alternatives yet).
 In general I have a problem with packages that pulls in *something*
which in turn depends on *something else* which in turn... overlapping
functionality etc. It's quite troublesome to keep, for instance, gconf
out of my system (masked by me to detect any upgrades that tries to
pull it in)...

In my world software (in general) should not become an obstacle; it
is just a tool to accomplish whatever you want it to do. Ideally the OS
(and whatever interfaces the user) shouldn't consume _any_ resources at
all (yes, I'm well aware that it's not possible). Resource usage should
at least be kept to a minimum, otherwise I have to buy new faster
hardware for each upgrade (be it for security, for functionality etc.)
and if I liked that I could just go with Windows. My whole complaint
about this udev business is that we're ballooning out of control, IMO,
becoming the monster that, I assume, most of us wanted to avoid.

PS. My animosity towards dbus is historical; I did use it years ago
(together with gnome, gconf etc.) which caused me nothing but trouble.
I've avoided that crap ever since. I do agree that the idea _behind_
dbus seems sensible but I'm not so sure about the implementation.

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[pk]

On 2011-09-18 12:03, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

 And what is your problem with dbus anyway? I bet you can't even measure a 
 difference between dbus running and dbus not running in speed or 
 responsiveness of your gui.

Not my specific case(s) but a quick google gave this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dbus/+bug/737170

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 12:44:04 schrieb pk:
 On 2011-09-18 12:03, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
  And what is your problem with dbus anyway? I bet you can't even measure
  a
  difference between dbus running and dbus not running in speed or
  responsiveness of your gui.
 
 Not my specific case(s) but a quick google gave this:
 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dbus/+bug/737170
 
 Best regards
 
 Peter K

so a single bug is all you got? OH MY GOD! Firefox uses 100% of a core. or OH 
MY GOD compiz makes my CPU and GPU running hot and noisy! OH MY GOD udev 
update killed dvb-s!.

So you are going from a single bug to 'it must be evil'. If you do that all 
the time there isn't much software left.
-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 6:03 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann
volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:
 Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 11:23:43 schrieb pk:
 On 2011-09-18 09:37, Alan McKinnon wrote:
  Other systems may start to use it if it proves itself useful. Lucky for
  us, it doesn't obsolete anything else, just adds functionality to what
  is already there.

 Although, one thing which I find very annoying is that the things that
 depend on it starts dbus-launch/daemon no matter if I don't want to run
 it or not (it's not running acc. to rc-update show but ps -ef shows both
 dbus-launch and dbus-daemon running). I'm using Xfce4 and have Audacious
 installed which depends on dbus-glib, which of course depends on dbus
 itself. No other packages uses it (USE= -dbus). Xfce4 and Audacious
 hasn't used dbus before a certain version (at least it has not been
 mandatory) and I've been using them for years (haven't had the time to
 look for alternatives yet).
  In general I have a problem with packages that pulls in *something*
 which in turn depends on *something else* which in turn... overlapping
 functionality etc. It's quite troublesome to keep, for instance, gconf
 out of my system (masked by me to detect any upgrades that tries to
 pull it in)...

 In my world software (in general) should not become an obstacle; it
 is just a tool to accomplish whatever you want it to do. Ideally the OS
 (and whatever interfaces the user) shouldn't consume _any_ resources at
 all (yes, I'm well aware that it's not possible). Resource usage should
 at least be kept to a minimum, otherwise I have to buy new faster
 hardware for each upgrade (be it for security, for functionality etc.)
 and if I liked that I could just go with Windows. My whole complaint
 about this udev business is that we're ballooning out of control, IMO,
 becoming the monster that, I assume, most of us wanted to avoid.

 PS. My animosity towards dbus is historical; I did use it years ago
 (together with gnome, gconf etc.) which caused me nothing but trouble.
 I've avoided that crap ever since. I do agree that the idea _behind_
 dbus seems sensible but I'm not so sure about the implementation.

 Best regards

 Peter K

 years ago? is gnome even using dbus for years? They had their broken
 corba/orbit/bonobo stuff.

They used ORBit/bonobo during 1.0 and 1.2 series. With GNOME 2.0, and
when dbus got stable (1.0), they started migrating stuff to it, but
they keep bonobo around for compatibility reasons. With GNOME 3,
bonobo is completely deprecated, and everything needing IPC should use
dbus.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[pk]

On 2011-09-18 14:32, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

 So you are going from a single bug to 'it must be evil'. If you do that all 
 the time there isn't much software left.

You said: I bet you can't even measure a
difference between dbus running and dbus not running in speed or
responsiveness of your gui.

I only pointed out that that was not always correct (I don't run
Ubuntu). And I have had a _lot_ of problems with dbus (again, this was
years ago, running binary distros - it's only recently that I had dbus
installed again due to Xfce4 requiring it); if I get burnt by some piece
of software (usually it's gnome/freedesktop related - seems a lot of bad
ideas/implementations come from that place) I try to go elsewhere.
So if your experience with dbus is different, then fine, by all means
use it; it is your choice. But I choose to avoid it, if possible.

And yes, it seems no matter how hard I try the gnome paradigm ('evil'
software) seems to be inching ever closer... I think developers, in
general, should take some hints from this guy:
http://www.sics.se/~adam/
... he created this:
http://www.contiki-os.org/p/about-contiki.html
... running this:
http://www.c64web.com/

Best regards

Peter k

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 9:19 AM, pk pete...@coolmail.se wrote:
 On 2011-09-18 14:32, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

 So you are going from a single bug to 'it must be evil'. If you do that all
 the time there isn't much software left.

 You said: I bet you can't even measure a
 difference between dbus running and dbus not running in speed or
 responsiveness of your gui.

 I only pointed out that that was not always correct (I don't run
 Ubuntu). And I have had a _lot_ of problems with dbus (again, this was
 years ago, running binary distros - it's only recently that I had dbus
 installed again due to Xfce4 requiring it); if I get burnt by some piece
 of software (usually it's gnome/freedesktop related - seems a lot of bad
 ideas/implementations come from that place) I try to go elsewhere.
 So if your experience with dbus is different, then fine, by all means
 use it; it is your choice. But I choose to avoid it, if possible.

 And yes, it seems no matter how hard I try the gnome paradigm ('evil'
 software) seems to be inching ever closer... I think developers, in
 general, should take some hints from this guy:
 http://www.sics.se/~adam/
 ... he created this:
 http://www.contiki-os.org/p/about-contiki.html
 ... running this:
 http://www.c64web.com/

Hey, that's really cool.

Just don't expect everybody to run our systems without the modern
parts of the stack just because a Commodore 64 cannot run it.

Many of us actually like the modern features of the kernel, glibc,
udev, dbus, systemd, pulseaudio, glib, X.org, GStreamer, Gtk+ and
GNOME (or Qt and KDE). In my case (and I have used Linux for a long
time), the whole stack looks full of awsomeness, and stuff just works
most of the time.

So yeah, we use more CPU cycles, more memory and more hard drive. From
my POV, we get more than that in new and improved functionality.


 Best regards

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 09:15:25 schrieb Canek Peláez Valdés:
 On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 6:03 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann
 
 volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:
  Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 11:23:43 schrieb pk:
  On 2011-09-18 09:37, Alan McKinnon wrote:
   Other systems may start to use it if it proves itself useful.
   Lucky for us, it doesn't obsolete anything else, just adds
   functionality to what is already there.
  
  Although, one thing which I find very annoying is that the things that
  depend on it starts dbus-launch/daemon no matter if I don't want to
  run
  it or not (it's not running acc. to rc-update show but ps -ef shows
  both
  dbus-launch and dbus-daemon running). I'm using Xfce4 and have
  Audacious
  installed which depends on dbus-glib, which of course depends on dbus
  itself. No other packages uses it (USE= -dbus). Xfce4 and Audacious
  hasn't used dbus before a certain version (at least it has not been
  mandatory) and I've been using them for years (haven't had the time to
  look for alternatives yet).
   In general I have a problem with packages that pulls in *something*
  which in turn depends on *something else* which in turn... overlapping
  functionality etc. It's quite troublesome to keep, for instance, gconf
  out of my system (masked by me to detect any upgrades that tries to
  pull it in)...
  
  In my world software (in general) should not become an obstacle;
  it
  is just a tool to accomplish whatever you want it to do. Ideally the
  OS
  (and whatever interfaces the user) shouldn't consume _any_ resources
  at
  all (yes, I'm well aware that it's not possible). Resource usage
  should
  at least be kept to a minimum, otherwise I have to buy new faster
  hardware for each upgrade (be it for security, for functionality
  etc.)
  and if I liked that I could just go with Windows. My whole complaint
  about this udev business is that we're ballooning out of control,
  IMO,
  becoming the monster that, I assume, most of us wanted to avoid.
  
  PS. My animosity towards dbus is historical; I did use it years ago
  (together with gnome, gconf etc.) which caused me nothing but trouble.
  I've avoided that crap ever since. I do agree that the idea _behind_
  dbus seems sensible but I'm not so sure about the implementation.
  
  Best regards
  
  Peter K
  
  years ago? is gnome even using dbus for years? They had their broken
  corba/orbit/bonobo stuff.
 
 They used ORBit/bonobo during 1.0 and 1.2 series. With GNOME 2.0, and
 when dbus got stable (1.0), they started migrating stuff to it, but
 they keep bonobo around for compatibility reasons. With GNOME 3,
 bonobo is completely deprecated, and everything needing IPC should use
 dbus.
 
 Regards.

ah, didn't know that. I read about some dbus problems when KDE was moving over 
caused by dbus being to gnome-centric. But I never cared to much about it.
-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 15:19:29 schrieb pk:
 On 2011-09-18 14:32, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
  So you are going from a single bug to 'it must be evil'. If you do that
  all the time there isn't much software left.
 
 You said: I bet you can't even measure a
 difference between dbus running and dbus not running in speed or
 responsiveness of your gui.
 
 I only pointed out that that was not always correct (I don't run
 Ubuntu). And I have had a _lot_ of problems with dbus (again, this was
 years ago, running binary distros - it's only recently that I had dbus
 installed again due to Xfce4 requiring it); if I get burnt by some piece
 of software (usually it's gnome/freedesktop related - seems a lot of bad
 ideas/implementations come from that place) I try to go elsewhere.
 So if your experience with dbus is different, then fine, by all means
 use it; it is your choice. But I choose to avoid it, if possible.
 
 And yes, it seems no matter how hard I try the gnome paradigm ('evil'
 software) seems to be inching ever closer... I think developers, in
 general, should take some hints from this guy:
 http://www.sics.se/~adam/
 ... he created this:
 http://www.contiki-os.org/p/about-contiki.html
 ... running this:
 http://www.c64web.com/
 
 Best regards
 
 Peter k

well, I haven't run in that dbus-uses-100%-cpu bug. But I also take every and 
all ubuntu bug reports with a huge amount of salt because of all the patches 
they include.

But:

106   2740  0.0  0.0  20296  1484 ?Ss   Sep11   0:20 
/usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system
1000  4852  0.0  0.0  18124   420 ?SSep11   0:00 
/usr/bin/dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session
1000  4853  0.1  0.0  16576  4916 ?Ss   Sep11  11:20 
/usr/bin/dbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 5 --print-address 7 --session
root  5535  0.0  0.0  18268   560 pts/0SSep11   0:00 dbus-launch 
--autolaunch bd5372f2e9f3742ccd79bd31000a --binary-syntax --close-stderr
root  5536  0.0  0.0  11268   624 ?Ss   Sep11   0:00 
/usr/bin/dbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 5 --print-address 7 --session
1000 21585  0.0  0.0 106240   912 pts/5S+   15:34   0:00 grep dbus

uptime
 15:35:37 up 7 days, 14:37, 11 users,  load average: 0.14, 0.06, 0.05

again, if it you say 'it must be bad because there is a bug in it' you can 
disregard all software ever written. On a normal, not ubuntu system you won't 
notice dbus running.

And since you have one standardized IPC system in place, all the apps don't 
need to invent another one resulting in less code executed, less code in ram 
and less code on your harddisk.


-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Michael Mol]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann
volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote:
 Am Sonntag 18 September 2011, 15:19:29 schrieb pk:
 again, if it you say 'it must be bad because there is a bug in it' you can
 disregard all software ever written.

This is why, when designing systems, you want as little complexity as
possible; the greater the complexity, the greater the incidence of
bugs. Yes, it's unavoidable that there are bugs, but lower bug counts
are better.

(Not making a specific argument against D-Bus here, just the rhetorical device.)

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[pk]

On 2011-09-18 14:56, Alan McKinnon wrote:

 And he's using Audacious - a fork of a gigantic bug nest (mms) .
 According to his earlier post, it forces dbus to run.

Xmms, I believe it's called. And it's been working fine for quite a
while (I've actually have never encountered a bug with Audacious), for
me. Now, when I upgraded to 2.4.x dbus was forced on me (well, that and
Xfce4)... I'm used to Audacious because I like the simple interface
(non-gtk+). But if you have another player you would like to recommend
I'll gladly try it. Requirements: no gconf/gnome/udev/udisk(etc.)
dependency (only sane dependencies like libogg/flac etc., possibly gtk
or qt for ui but nothing else), simple UI (like Audacious legacy mode),
no singin' and dancing crap (simplicity over features)...

 Now, that can hardly be dbus's fault if some other app has a hardcoded
 RUNTIME dep on dbus. The fault lies entirely with Audacious, not with
 dbus.

I fully agree to that last sentiment, which is why I'm whining... I
thought that was what we were doing here? ;-)
But to be fair, it's actually Xfce4 that starts dbus-daemon/launch (I
haven't started Audacious yet and I always turn off my computer when not
in use).

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Indi]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:55:01 +0200
pk pete...@coolmail.se wrote:


 Xmms, I believe it's called. And it's been working fine for quite a
 while (I've actually have never encountered a bug with Audacious), for
 me. Now, when I upgraded to 2.4.x dbus was forced on me (well, that
 and Xfce4)... I'm used to Audacious because I like the simple
 interface (non-gtk+). But if you have another player you would like
 to recommend I'll gladly try it. Requirements: no
 gconf/gnome/udev/udisk(etc.) dependency (only sane dependencies like
 libogg/flac etc., possibly gtk or qt for ui but nothing else), simple
 UI (like Audacious legacy mode), no singin' and dancing crap
 (simplicity over features)...
 

Install mpd, mpc, and ncmpc. Read the man pages, live happily ever
after.

-- 
caveat utilitor

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[pk]

On 2011-09-18 15:31, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:

 Hey, that's really cool.

I agree.

 Just don't expect everybody to run our systems without the modern
 parts of the stack just because a Commodore 64 cannot run it.

I think you need to take a closer look; it does support a lot of
modern parts of the stack (as you call it); it's just focused on the
things that matters (for an embedded system). It is the mindset that I'm
after; it seems even kernel developers are thinking oh, we have so much
memory here so it doesn't matter if we use a few GB here (yes, I'm
exaggerating). Intel and AMD can't increase the clocks anymore so
they've started to throw more hardware on the ever increasing demand for
computing power... there will be a time when the bloat will take it's
toll on more users.

 Many of us actually like the modern features of the kernel, glibc,
 udev, dbus, systemd, pulseaudio, glib, X.org, GStreamer, Gtk+ and

There's a lot of people that like Windows 7 and MacOS X too, I hear.
What the ultimate goal (in my view) for systemd, pulseaudio etc. seems
to be is to mimic (poorly) the mentioned OS's. Why go through all that
trouble when they can just go out and buy what they want?

The Linux kernel, glibc and X I like, udev used to be nice (well, my
currently installed version works fine), the rest is redundant (more or
less) - in my view (particularly pulseaudio  systemd); I really don't
understand what problems they are solving.

 GNOME (or Qt and KDE). In my case (and I have used Linux for a long

I also have used GNU/Linux for quite a while (1995) and have seen it
grow from quite humble (but capable) beginnings to what it is today
(even Linus Torvalds thinks the kernel is bloated) and I'll refrain from
commenting on gnome (and to a lesser extent KDE). The best install I've
ever had was a LFS install around 2000 running on a Abit BP6 with two
celeron CPUs and a scsi harddrive (9GB)... :-)

 time), the whole stack looks full of awsomeness, and stuff just works
 most of the time.

No comment. :-/

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[pk]

On 2011-09-18 19:41, Indi wrote:

 Install mpd, mpc, and ncmpc. Read the man pages, live happily ever
 after.

Ok, I'll look into it. Thanks!

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:55:01 +0200
pk pete...@coolmail.se wrote:

  And he's using Audacious - a fork of a gigantic bug nest (mms) .
  According to his earlier post, it forces dbus to run.  
 
 Xmms, I believe it's called. And it's been working fine for quite a
 while (I've actually have never encountered a bug with Audacious), for
 me. Now, when I upgraded to 2.4.x dbus was forced on me (well, that
 and Xfce4)... I'm used to Audacious because I like the simple
 interface (non-gtk+). But if you have another player you would like
 to recommend I'll gladly try it.

No, I'm not doing your homework for you. Try them all, and settle on
the one YOU like.

Maybe you could start with alsa-player and bash

-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT rant] udev + /usr

[Michael Mol]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 1:43 PM, pk pete...@coolmail.se wrote:
 I think you need to take a closer look; it does support a lot of
 modern parts of the stack (as you call it); it's just focused on the
 things that matters (for an embedded system). It is the mindset that I'm
 after; it seems even kernel developers are thinking oh, we have so much
 memory here so it doesn't matter if we use a few GB here (yes, I'm
 exaggerating). Intel and AMD can't increase the clocks anymore so
 they've started to throw more hardware on the ever increasing demand for
 computing power... there will be a time when the bloat will take it's
 toll on more users.

The kernel configuration process is actually very nice and very easy.
You an remove any features you don't want or need. (I'm referring to,
e.g. menuconfig. I haven't really used genkernel)

The first time's the hardest. After you know what parts you need for a
given box, it's easy.

 Many of us actually like the modern features of the kernel, glibc,
 udev, dbus, systemd, pulseaudio, glib, X.org, GStreamer, Gtk+ and

 There's a lot of people that like Windows 7 and MacOS X too, I hear.
 What the ultimate goal (in my view) for systemd, pulseaudio etc. seems
 to be is to mimic (poorly) the mentioned OS's.

FWIW, PulseAudio predates Windows Vista, Windows 7, even MacOS X. I
ran it on a 200MHz machine back when it was called Enlightenment Sound
Daemon.

With as much as I've poked at PulseAudio, I'd have to say I like it
better than I like the Vista/Win7 implementation of sound daemons.

There's probably not much one can do with PA that one couldn't do with
jackd, which is probably better in terms of latency, but I never got
around to learning jackd.

 The Linux kernel, glibc and X I like, udev used to be nice (well, my
 currently installed version works fine), the rest is redundant (more or
 less) - in my view (particularly pulseaudio  systemd); I really don't
 understand what problems they are solving.

While I was using PA (I'm not, currently), it was nice for being able
to monitor and tune the volume levels of individual programs. That can
be important when trying to manage two different VOIP apps, video
games and Pandora at the same time.

-- 
:wq