> this doesn't work on Linux. you can't herd sheep^H^H^H^H^Hpenguins > with a flamethrower.
right. so we've already established that the actual nature of the problem on linux is different, and much closer to the windows situation - a huge variation in hardware types and configurations. jwz solved his "problem" by throwing the problem away, and moving into a domain where the problem he had wasn't solved, it was eliminated. > thing is though: he does have a point. why is this stuff still so > hard, after so many years? its -not- the drivers, imho, its the > moving-target nature of ALSA and all the competing audio API's, > underneath a pile of semi-working apps .. the competing APIs is definitely a problem. the OSS guys continue to refuse to accept ALSA, and continue to promote the benefits of their API and libraries. The layers that have been built on top of them (PortAudio, JACK, the arts audio api, gnome-sound, etc) continue to compete with each other in various ways. what is happening on linux is similar to the windows world: multiple audio APIs each of which serve a different purpose (windows own MM api, ASIO, GSIF). OS X has a head start here because they forced everyone, even the email client writers, to use a callback model for audio I/O via CoreAudio. if we could do that on linux, the biggest headaches could be solved quickly. but as you note, we can't. > in all fairness, if there were a hardware vendor willing to follow > the 'known working' path to ALSA glory, we wouldn't be having this > discussion .. or, at least, if we knew of such a vendor (i'm sure > they're out there, those quiet linux VAR's who pack it all up and > send it off, operational-like). jwz would have refused to buy the equipment from that vendor. he would have insisted that it should work on the gear he already has, since ALSA says that its supported. "and now they tell me i have to buy a machine from this Linux Audio Systems people just to play music at the same time as making a skype call. wtf?" > operational status as we see under OSX .. even though, i'm very, very > eager to see linux function as a working audio platform. there's > gotta be -some- way to get it all working, and i dont just mean "buy > a Dell laptop" .. there are millions more people doing audio on windows than on osx, and yet windows requires *at least* as much work to get setup for pro-audio as linux. so what conclusion do we draw from that? --p
