[linux-audio-user] what window manager are you using?

[Jack O'Quin]

Russell Hanaghan <hanaghan at starband.net> writes:

> On Thu, 2004-08-12 at 08:30, Jack O'Quin wrote:
> > Russell Hanaghan <hanaghan at starband.net> writes:
> > 
> > > Does anyone know if a package for this kernel has been done for Mandrake
> > > 10.0? I'm not at the pseudo Jedi Warrior level for compiling kernels
> > > just yet! :) Although, I HAVE become a master at compiling Wine and fst
> > > / jack_fst! :P
> > 
> > Actually, compiling your own kernel is probably easier than that.  :-)
> 
> Good god man! I've lost most of my hair and my wife left and the dog
> died while I got jack_fst to finally work!! :)

My condolences.  ;-)

I didn't say it was trivial.  If wine and jack_fst is an 8 or 9 (on a
difficulty scale from one to 10), building your own kernel is probably
only a 6 or 7.  

Why?  Despite the inherent complexity, kernel builds are a
well-trodden path, with years of development support and mature
configuration interfaces, makefiles, HOWTOs, README, etc.  

Because jack_fst is so new, it will likely require a bit of fiddling
for a while yet.  Any time you work with Windows binaries, things get
tricky.  They're not made to work with Linux.  The kernel sources are.

> And now, darn it...you got me thinking I should try! Are there any
> advantages to compiling and leaving out the bunches of crap I don't ever
> use that are built in the kernel? Like resources, memory, speed savings
> of any sort?

There are minor advantages.  None are really compelling unless you
need some feature (like lower latency) not available with your
distribution's version.  Most distributions keep up to date fairly
well.  So if you're willing to wait a while, they will likely provide
what you need.

But, curiosity is a good enough reason. It just costs time, no money.
:-)

I my view, the vanilla 2.6.7 kernels perform well enough already for
many audio applications.  If you need something better, by all means
try some of the recent patches.  Lee, Flo, Nando, Takashi and others
have done valuable work providing a test bed for kernel developers
like Ingo and Andrew to do their work.  It's beautiful to see.
-- 
  joq