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

[Lee Revell]

On Mon, 2005-06-20 at 18:47 +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> The set-up is, however, not only the choice of the soundcard, but it
> includes eventually the choice and set-up of devices.  For example,
> the default I/O should support 5.1 output or SPDIF if user wants (I'm
> wondering why no one mentions about them.)
> 

I think because the apps that want to use these (99% xine and mplayer)
already seem to do the right thing.

> Then (2), it's more about with JACK:  I think the scenario above would
> work indeed.  We don't have a plugin to do such a job yet, but it
> should be easy to create.  Suppose a new plugin which have a
> configuration like below:
> 
> pcm.!default {
>         type sequential
>         pcms [ "dmix" "jack" ... ]
> }
>                 
> so that it will try to open dmix, jack, etc sequentially until it
> succeeds.  Then non-JACK apps can work seamlessly, too, without
> changing configuration.
> 

This is a great idea, we should discuss it further on alsa-devel.

In fact JACK works perfectly fine with or without dmix, it just
complains loudly if you try to use it with the plug layer.  We should
preserve this behavior: JACK will first try to get exclusive access,
then if only dmix is available, it should display a warning and
continue.

Lee