[linux-audio-dev] Re: What Parts of Linux Audio Simply Work Great?

gerard van dongen gml at xs4all.nl
Sun Jun 19 08:26:38 UTC 2005


On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 01:57:27 +0200, fons adriaensen  
<fons.adriaensen at skynet.be> wrote:


> A number of issues have been mixed up in this debate:
>
> 1. 'cheap' vs. 'pro' audio cards.
>
> I do agree there is a large category in between, usually named
> 'prosumer', and that these are used by 'professional' (as defined
> below) people.
>

As a profesional by anybodies standard , a few observations.
Setting up a studio with jack and a well supported mutlichannel soundcard  
is at the moment easier than configuring a multimedia desktop. It is not a  
big effort, especially compared to the amount of time it takes to attach  
up your hardware mixer, figuring out the perfect placement of the  
monitors, the room accoustics, etc. etc.
Any problems with proaudio on linux are very minor compared to the problem  
of proper grounding a studio to avoid ground-loops.


The fact is that it is not just the audio part that makes setting up a  
multimedia desktop
hard on linux. Getting your browser to support all the media types,  
choosing between a zillion players and codecs, proprietary plugins lagging  
behind their Windows or OSX counterparts etc.etc. And here is where the  
distributions should get their act together.
Less choice, better configurations.


> Now given the two following options:
>
> A. Extend Jack to accomodate all the diverse needs of the
>    desktop developers, and request them to use it for all
>    applications,
>
> B. Provide a layer on top of both Jack and ALSA (as for
>    example the jackified artsd), and recommend that for
>    desktop apps,
>
> then for me it's clear that I would prefer B. It would
> provide a solution for at least three types of users:
>
> - desktop audio only: run the server on top of ALSA and
>   don't bother with Jack.
>
> - audio production workstation (no 'desktop entertainment'):
>   just run Jack as we already do.
>
> - those in between: run the server on top of Jack.
>
>

Exactly.
That is what I do. In the studio I run jack. In the office just KDE with  
artsd on alsa.
No problems.

And since when is switching the audio engine to change from reading your  
email to doing your audio editing a big issue?
Prior to osX that is what you would do on the mac. There are a lot of  
studios still using os9 hardware with ProTools.

Gerard





More information about the Linux-audio-dev mailing list