On Wed, 2009-08-05 at 21:53 +0200, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
>From TFA:
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Go to System->Preferences->Sound, click on the Devices tab, and check
out the pulldown menu next to ¡Sound Events¢ at the top of the panel.
You will see various acronyms, possibly including cryptic-looking
technologies like OSS, ESD, ALSA, JACK, and Pulse Audio. These acronyms
represent a byzantine tangle of conflicting technologies that over time,
and due to political reasons or backwards compatibility, have ended up
cohabiting with one another. ¡Frankenstein¢ might be an accurate
metaphor here.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way, which is the combination of ALSA [a
high-performance, kernel-level audio and MIDI system] and JACK [a system
for creating low-latency audio, MIDI, and sync connections between
applications and computers]. The battle-scarred among us have learned to
ignore all the other audio cruft bolted on to Ubuntu and just use ALSA
and JACK. One can think of the ALSA/JACK stack, the heart of most pro
Linux studios, as the Core Audio of Linux and in my opinion Jack should
be the first thing installed on any musicians laptop. I¢d go so far as
to suggest placing it in the Startup Applications so it¢s always
running.
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IMO without a ton of effort Jack could, and should, be turned into a
viable default installation audio system (or the bottom layer of such a
system, at least). The desktop guys certainly aren't ever going to get
it right.
The above problem is a very real one as far as people's perception of
GNU/Linux as an audio system. What a mess. We can do better.