> Let's take Linux audio, for example. The first thing we have to do is > take ALSA, OSS, JACK, PulseAudio, GStreamer, and everything else you can > think off off the top of your head, gather all of that up and shove it > right down the garbage disposer. Linux audio is just about the most > ludicrous example of design by committee I can think of.
I think ALSA, as painful as it can be, is a pretty good layer performance-wise. As an example, I was able to get a complex PD patch I made down to a few milliseconds with ALSA (about 10 or 15?) when running on an Atom-based system with on-board audio. On Windows, with ASIO4ALL, I was still only able to get down to 40ms buffer size or so without breakups. With JACK on top of it, it's apparently a lot easier to code for and still performs very nicely. So, I'd argue that we don't need to throw it out as much as adopt JACK as the main sound server. > I don't know, man. Really, when I think about it fairly, Windows has > just about as many problems as we do with audio, and if OS-X doesn't, > it's only because the hardware ecosystem OS-X is expected to function > with is extremely narrow and limited. One thing I would point out here is that low latency audio devices are not necessarily tested on Linux. This is a distinct advantage of the two commercial platforms (or: no operating system is an island!). In this way, OS X is *not* functioning in a limited ecosystem, yet I've had few issues with it (aside from with DigiDesign's drivers!). > I guess the problem ain't just Linux, it's these damned computational > machine box things generally. They say they're supposed to do stuff, > and there are even books telling you what to expect them to do, but in > practice, they fail to perform so often, and year after year, decade > after decade, the problems never really go away and stay gone. > > There are happy moments, little islands of stability where everything > works flawlessly, and life is good, but these moments are always temporary. It's really just about finding a configuration of hw, os and software that works for your purposes. These machines are so complex that I don't think there's any one config that'll work for everyone's needs. -Louis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Rosegarden-user mailing list [email protected] - use the link below to unsubscribe https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rosegarden-user
