13 Jun
2005
13 Jun
'05
2:25 p.m.
this doesn't work on Linux. you can't herd
sheep^H^H^H^H^Hpenguins
with a flamethrower.
right. so we've already established that the actual nature of the
problem on linux is different, and much closer to the windows situation
- a huge variation in hardware types and configurations. jwz solved his
"problem" by throwing the problem away, and moving into a domain where
the problem he had wasn't solved, it was eliminated.
thing is though: he does have a point. why is this
stuff still so
hard, after so many years? its -not- the drivers, imho, its the
moving-target nature of ALSA and all the competing audio API's,
underneath a pile of semi-working apps ..
the competing APIs is definitely a problem. the OSS guys continue to
refuse to accept ALSA, and continue to promote the benefits of their API
and libraries. The layers that have been built on top of them
(PortAudio, JACK, the arts audio api, gnome-sound, etc) continue to
compete with each other in various ways.
what is happening on linux is similar to the windows world: multiple
audio APIs each of which serve a different purpose (windows own MM api,
ASIO, GSIF). OS X has a head start here because they forced everyone,
even the email client writers, to use a callback model for audio I/O via
CoreAudio. if we could do that on linux, the biggest headaches could be
solved quickly. but as you note, we can't.
in all fairness, if there were a hardware vendor
willing to follow
the 'known working' path to ALSA glory, we wouldn't be having this
discussion .. or, at least, if we knew of such a vendor (i'm sure
they're out there, those quiet linux VAR's who pack it all up and
send it off, operational-like).
jwz would have refused to buy the equipment from that vendor. he would
have insisted that it should work on the gear he already has, since ALSA
says that its supported. "and now they tell me i have to buy a machine
from this Linux Audio Systems people just to play music at the same time
as making a skype call. wtf?"
operational status as we see under OSX .. even though,
i'm very, very
eager to see linux function as a working audio platform. there's
gotta be -some- way to get it all working, and i dont just mean "buy
a Dell laptop" ..
there are millions more people doing audio on windows than on osx, and
yet windows requires *at least* as much work to get setup for pro-audio
as linux. so what conclusion do we draw from that?
--p