[linux-audio-user] OT: FUD or not? what is your opinion?

[Dave Phillips]

Damon Chaplin wrote:

>I bought my first midi keyboard last week (a CME UF5), and it's great
>fun with the Reason demo in Windows. But I've spent hours and hours
>messing with about 4 different synths under Linux and each one failed
>(in a different way, of course!). That is absolutely ridiculous.
>  
>
Yes, it is, and I'm sorry you can't get things going.

However, I checked the LAD and LAU mail lists, apparently you didn't 
post messages regarding your troubles. It's tough to give you any 
meaningful response if we don't know which synths didn't work for you 
and what distro you're using. Did you contact the developers directly ?

And please, *of course* everything works in Windows. We know this, we've 
heard it a gazillion times, and it remains eminently unhelpful. (Sorry, 
Damon, I'm already in a bad mood: LJ won't fund my trip to LAC2007).

>It would also be nice if the LAD community could agree on an ideal audio
>architecture for the desktop. Otherwise GNOME & KDE may switch to new
>sound servers which still don't support pro-audio apps.
>  
>
Given the interest and respect shown towards LAD by the GNOME and KDE 
devels, I'd say we're more likely to witness pigs in self-powered flight.

The LAD community probably already has agreed on an ideal server (JACK). 
What we need is good old industry clout, and we ain't got none. Not very 
much anyway: Hardware manufacturers continue to ignore our existence, 
the major publications see no reason to cover the Linux audio scene, and 
even general Linux devels and users seem content and happy with the fact 
that the music they like is almost entirely produced on proprietary 
platforms and closed-source software.

The Linux sound & music communities have grown with virtually *no* 
assistance from any commercial source, i.e., nothing from the distro 
manufacturers or anywhere else. I don't like hyperbole, but in this case 
it's justified: The work taken on by Linux audio developers is 
Herculean, they're doing it with virtually no support anywhere, 
including damned little from the general Linux community. For instance, 
Slashdot recently ran an article on a new "OSS music composer", for 
Windows, natch. It's as though they've simply decided there's no future 
in Linux audio, so they'll just ignore it until it goes away. [insert 
unfriendly suggestion to /. here]

Hell and damnation, I can't even get the Linux Journal to help out with 
a trip to LAC, which implies to me that *it's just not important 
enough*. We're talking about mere hundreds of dollars, not even close to 
a grand, but they're not interested. Again I say, hell and damnation.

>What would be the ideal?
> o gstreamer/phonon -> sound server (e.g. pulseaudio) -> jack -> alsa?
> o merge jack code into pulseaudio?
> o Define an API for pro-audio apps to switch audio output to jack
>   temporarily? (if jack isn't suited to running constantly)
> o something else?
>
Whatever, it should be based on JACK or its design principles, else 
we'll just get more or less workable replacements for artsd and esd.

Today I have no good hopes for an audio-optimized general Linux desktop. 
Tomorrow I might feel better about it all, but right now I really don't 
see any organized effort to change the current situation.

Best,

dp