17 Jun
2005
17 Jun
'05
2:10 p.m.
Hi,
Agreed. arts isn't maintained anymore, so KDE is looking for a
replacement (like gstreamer). Because there's no common
soundserver for all applications, they will need to make a
decicion. Which audio subsystem should they support? ALSA
direct access is no choice because it blocks the device. DMIX
is a choice, but what if I want to use JACK simultaneously
without using DMIX? JACK could become a common audio server
but still it isn't. Any recommendation which audio system a
programmer should use?
1. You don't need GNOME or KDE support to develop
audio
applications any more than you need their support for
accessing files, the network, the display or whatever. So
they should remain neutral on this matter.
I absolutely agree. But why did they start to use
arts/esound/gstreamer? Because they wanted to ensure that
multiple applications can play sounds at the same time. What
chance did they have to use a commonly accepted soundserver?
None. There was no soundserver and no softwaremixing, and
less people had (and still have) an audio card with
hardwaremixing.
2. Any application that can run only under a
particular
window manager or that depends on facilities from a
particular desktop is IMHO just broken. The choice of
window manager / desktop belongs to the user, not the
developer.
Yep.
(I think both
GNOME & KDE are considering switching audio
APIs at the moment, so now is a good time for the
linux-audio community to get involved.)
If everybody would just use ALSA for general use, and JACK
for serious music / sound applications, that would be fine.
The last thing we need is one more 'sound server / daemon'.
(*) (*)<rantmode>
A few days ago I kicked up Rosegarden again to see if it
could be useful for the project I was starting. It wasn't
so I terminated it, only to find out later that there were
still a number of KDE applications running, including a
sound daemon, blocking access to all others. Grrr.
Welcome in the Linux audio world ;-) .
BTW: Arts has a timeout mode so it'll free the device as soon
it isn't needed for more than the entered time.
Thanks & best regards
ce