[linux-audio-user] [ANN] Downloadable Linux Audio Live CD ISO

[Christoph Eckert]

> it certainly (and intentionally) focuses on interactive
> apps that immediately make a lot of noise ;-) Would be cool
> to extend it in a way to also offer simple mouse click
> access e.g. to Ardour, MusE, including the required HowTos.
> (Live distro designers, are you listening ? ;-)

I for myself have really enjoyed the live CD, and I 
immediately did install the latest version of Aeolus on my 
Gentoo box after I had played the live CD one.

Otherwise, the CD somehow also shows that audio on linux is 
still not that easy to handle. I think that there are so many 
nice audio apps, but some minor improvements concerning the 
usability would make it much easier to unexperienced users to 
get started; I'd simply like to address some of the things 
that I would find really great:

* applications could automatically check during startup if 
jack is running and autoconnect to it; if not (or ..alsa is 
given), fall back to ALSA. ams for example does 
autoconfiguring the audio output really great

* applications could remember the last used MIDI interface and 
autoreconnect to it; most often a computer has only one MIDI 
interface which is not often changed

* applications could automatically reconnect to jack as soon 
as jack has been restarted or jack has disconnected an 
application; currently, some applications simply freeze

* GUI applications could offer the possibility to set and 
change the MIDI and audio connections from within the 
program's interface.

* Audio applications could make it possible to choose the 
desired audio card for input or output from within the GUI 
(like kamix does, for example) instead of expecting a CLI 
parameter (which then is different for any application: --ao 
alsa:3, --device plughhw:1, -c 2, and even the numbering from 
0 to n or 1 to n+1 is confusing ;-).

There are more things which would be nice to have; we all want 
to have long required new features instead of some 
convenience functions, but as soon new users are a 
destination group, I have to say that it is really great if 
someone can write a complicated software, but it is also 
complicated and honourful to have the end user in mind.

Meanwhile (and in a very short time), audio applications on 
linux have seen an evolution which is simply incredible. I 
guess now it's the right time to add - step by step - some 
convenience functions to them.


And oh yeah, if *I* could only code, I'd immediately start 20 
projects concerning the comfort of using linux audio apps. Or 
I have to win a huge amount of money, so I could pay some 
developers to do the job for us ;-) . THe next life I live 
I'll be a programmer for sure!


Please note, this is not a complaint, but I thought I should 
grab the chance to make some suggestions in this great list.


 Best regards & have phun,


    ce