[linux-audio-user] Great news for JACK & KDE

Ivica Bukvic ico at fuse.net
Fri Nov 21 11:56:48 EST 2003


> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-audio-user-bounces at music.columbia.edu [mailto:linux-audio-
> user-bounces at music.columbia.edu] On Behalf Of Steve Harris
> Sent: Friday, November 21, 2003 9:14 AM
> To: A list for linux audio users
> Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Great news for JACK & KDE
> 
> On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 11:06:28 +0100, Hartmut Z Noack wrote:
> > > Anyone want to defend the use of artsd?
> >
> > i tend to say: "me not." but it ahhmmm... depends,
> >
> > 1.) would jack be "scalable" enough to run xmms and kolf with sound
> > enabled at the same time on a Pentium1/166MHz as arts does with arts
for
> > my 9 year old Daughter ?
>

Sorry, couldn't help not to respond to this one. I understand that many
people out there are still trying to squeeze the very last bit of life
from their old hardware, but let's face it, if we want to see Linux on
the desktop as a dominating force any time soon, then we need to stop
worrying whether every single feature will run on our grandma's 486. We
all know that Linux is about choice, but more importantly it is about
understanding when it is appropriate to utilize particular features this
choice offers us. In other words:

If you want to run Artsd directly through the soundcard on your old
thunderbucket pc just to hear that "you got mail," you can. But let's
face it, you won't be using that computer for any serious DSP work.
Hence you have no need for Jack, nor do you need to worry whether it
will run on such a machine well (because it most likely won't and more
importantly it shouldn't have to).

OTOH, if you want a serious workstation that is still able to do silly
blips every time your desktop wants to warn you about something, then
with the artsd implementing Jack you'll be able to do that too.

Some people have mentioned that they have really not missed these blips
and beeps since they disabled the artsd. I happen to believe that such
sounds are integral part of our healthy desktop experience (think people
with disabilities, audible reminders from our calendars that make us be
on-time for our appointments even though we are in the middle of our
creative frenzy, or finally getting rid of that lousy and annoying
built-in speaker beep), and as such it is a big stepping stone in having
Linux desktop adopted by the mainstream customer base.

Some people do not care if Linux ever gets adopted by the mainstream
customer base. I tend to think that the adoption of Linux into the
mainstream desktop environment will elicit more interest from the
commercial audio companies and eventually bring us a winning combination
of the OSS and commercial audio apps. Call me a dreamer if you want, but
I think that we're very close to this.

Now, if we could only get Gnome to do the same with their Gstreamer
architecture, and make sure that Jack can run indefinitely without
crashing, we'll be set! (please correct my ignorance if this has already
been done)

Ico





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