Hi,
Steve Holdoway wrote:
Or start a project to provide a sane alternative to alsa... (:
-->they have. It is called pulse.
Sound is one area where linux fails quite badly. Indeed, it is proof that
linux is not ready for the desktop of the ordinary user. If you cannot get
sound to work for you, then what hope does the ordinary person have??
The biggest failing in linux sound is the software design of sound has not
realised that the box has a variable number of sound cards. yes. Variable.
1 onboard sound device built into the hardware
1 usbheadset or bluetooth device or whatever that is plugged in/out at
random.
The asound.conf file architecture don't cope with this. Further -
requiring the user
to edit this file - which has (I am told) a lisp like syntax is berserk.
There is a quote on the topic of sound from someone which (paraphrased)
goes like:
sound - welcome to the jungle.
For the uninformed:
Alsa - the only advanced thing about alsa is the first letter..
- rhymes with the word "ulcer".
pulse - particularly useless linux sound engineers
===================================
I have been cursed with worrying about sound on a linux box for the last
ten years.
One project has 20 active sound channels (20 mics + 20 speakers) running
at the same time.
I have boxes here at home used by my family to do web serving
flash/youtube.
I have read comments from alsa "experts" on the mailing lists. The
quality and helpfulness of
their answers is apallingly bad. No wonder others struggle.
My personal feeling is that sound on linux "has improved", but there is
more room for improvement.
=====================================
Why did it get this bad?
Cause the alsa people live in an ivory tower, and don't watch real
people use real sound
on computers.
I think too the management of the sound software libraries on linux have
been poor. Not enough
time has been spent on getting things 'right'. We have invented new
sound systems, rather than
fixing the existing sound systems. OSS was fantastic, and worked far
better for telephony than
pulse/alsa.
Ok, rant mode off. However, each of the statements above is true. None
are hyperbola..
yes, some lucky people claim to have sound working fine. Try this simple
test.
put some usb headphones into the computer.
head phones work?
go to a flash media site - headphones work?
altered your asound.conf file yet?
Derek.
Derek J Smithies Ph.D.
Christchurch,
New Zealand
-- "How did you make it work??" "the usual, got everything right"
