Thanks for shedding some light on this issue. As a matter of fact this kind of info should be posted on the front page of LAD, so that the newcomers and the more adept users/programmers (such as myself), would know exactly what to seek and how to contribute to Linux audio community, since not many people nowadays have the luxury of time to browse the endless posts (and for that matter neither do we programmers have time to chat as we do right now re-discussing something that is important enough to be posted and summarized in some kind of "Linux audio current limitations log," right? :). You have said it the best: Linux overall, is acutely suffering from lack of coherent documentation, and if someone is not able to contribute code, maybe they can contribute to this, long overlooked problem. If people are made aware of the issue, they will be more likely to contribute... Otherwise we are playing a game of hide and seek with blind men...
As far as the deprivation from decent sound support in Linux is concerned, I know exactly what you mean, I was there -- maybe not as long as yourself, but certainly long enough for the problem to manifest itself through this kind of frustration. Apologies to all for cluttering your mailboxes with something that is turning out into an OT subject. Sincerely, Ico
