* Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> [2015-07-31 19:12]: Absolutely, thank you Paul, this is so true! Rui, then qjackctl issues these parameters in the wrong sequence (and stores them to ~/.jackdrc in that way as well). I don't want to create a sourceforge account in order to be able to report this on http://sourceforge.net/p/qjackctl/tickets/?source=navbar is there something else I could be doing to help? best, P

On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 07:46:07PM -0400, Peter P. wrote: No, -p can be used both before or after -d, but with a different meaning. Before -d it sets the number of ports, after -d it sets the period size. Side note to Rui: I *do* dislike having this separate 'advanced' tab in the settings. Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)

On Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 5:10 AM, Fons Adriaensen <fons(a)linuxaudio.org> wrote: You don't have to provide support to the endless stream of people who completely screw up their JACK system by naming the server, specifying capture/playback devices rather than using the "Interface" selector, screw around with thread priorities and on and on. We provide those options in jackd specifically for users who know what they are doing and have special needs. For most users, their existence is a hazard and there's no justification for the most common JACK control application to make their lives more complex by presenting a bunch of stuff that looks understandable but actually isn't.

On Sat, Aug 01, 2015 at 04:20:44PM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote: Provided the dialog opens with the 'advanced' part visible :-) Otherwise the message remains the same: 'we believe you're too stupid to see this'. Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)

On Sat, Aug 01, 2015 at 09:10:13AM -0700, Len Ovens wrote: Really ? With Qjackctl showing a blank display and a 'Start' button in the upper left corner ? What sort of brain damage is required for this situation to persist for longer than a few seconds ? Seems like an attitude problem. One which will affect every aspect of their lives if it's real. Reason enough to ignore them. Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)

On Sat, Aug 01, 2015 at 07:35:55PM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote: There is nothing harsh about that. Even a moderately intelligent person would probably discover and click 'Start'. Maybe just out of curiosity, but even that is enough. It won't happen twice. But even a man would find the Brussels sprouts if he knows they are in there somewhere. Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)

On Sat, Aug 01, 2015 at 08:48:20PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote: With a GUI in front of them inviting them to change it. With two or more sound cards, someone or something has to make a choice. That's not really rocket science. I don't think this is about computers. If someone really can't work out such simple things then he/she will be unable to do any job except maybe emptying trash cans, will fail the driving license examination, will happily pay $50 for three items that each cost $10, and will in general be unable to function in live as we know it. Let alone being creative. I don't believe most people are like that, and if sometimes they behave that way, it is by choice. And if this choice is as widespread as claimed, then what we have is a new class society. This time not the classical one of a the poor masses being exploited by a rich elite and a political system that maintains this order, but of the dumb masses simply *expecting* a more intelligent elite to take all, even the simplest decisions for them. It amounts to a voluntary rejection of part of what makes anyone a human being, and a lack of self-respect. All this in what remains despite the economic crisis an affluent part of the world, and where access to education, knowledge and information has never been easier. Like it ? I don't. And I'm not going to contribute anything that makes it worse. (without looking) 2 apples, a box of peaches (at least 5 remaining), 2 sorts of fruit juice, 3 tomatos, 1 cucumber, 1 onion, gorgonzola and feta cheese, parma ham, salad dressing, 3 packages of greek yogurt, 2 packages of vanilla flavoured soya dessert, bread. (so you may conclude that even when living among large quantities of Wurst my diet remains more or less mediterranean). Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)

On Sun, Aug 02, 2015 at 01:18:37PM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote: I would think that he is shocked and stunned and recovering from a bruised ego is the reason. He does see it subconsiously, though. -- "If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." --- Malcolm X

You're busy describing the relationship people should have with technology. One key aspects of your description is a feeling that I share with you, more or less: computers are tools and people need to know how to use the tools that are a part of their lives. Nobody is expecting a "a more intelligent elite to take all decisions for them" (well, perhaps not nobody, but not anyone i've met). Their perspective, though, is quite different. That perspective is that the *task* at hand is the important thing, and that the tool(s) should not intrude on the task unless absolutely necessary. From this perspective, a tool that requires them to understand and remember information about the *tool* is a worse tool than one which has no such requirement. From this perspective, tools that can be endlessly tinkered with are for hobbyists and oddballs, because the tools are never the goal, only the task, and if the tools requiring tinkering with in order to accomplish the task, that means that the toolmaker hasn't finished their work. I don't like this view, and I don't think it is very productive or healthy for society. But it isn't a new view, it isn't limited to computers or software, and it is VERY entrenched in modern industrial societies. This response and the previous one simply betray your status as a highly technical, highly experienced tinkering nerd (all said in a positive, respectful way). The issues with the presentation of JACK configuration options have nothing to do with things being "complex" (ala "rocket science", which also isn't really that complex :) but to do with psychological aspects of human/computer interaction. After you've talked (on IRC) to a dozen or more people who failed to identify the need to choose a device, and tried to ask them why they didn't see this need ... it is already too late. They already can no longer identify or remember why the choice was inobvious to them. This comes up at least once a week on #ardour, and every time I'm around for it, I've tried to gently quiz the user in a way that avoids me telling them the issue, to see if I can get an understanding of what their mental model was that managed to avoid "need to choose device". So far, I've been unable to do so. The closest I can get is that some users may have a model in which all audio going in and out of a computer, regardless of the number of devices, is part of a single, monolithic system, and that they will be able to make their choice about inputs and outputs once their are inside an application where this is necessary. I still don't think this fully captures the mental model that exists before someone realizes "oh yeah, I need to choose the device". But in some ways, it is a solid model for a particular class of users. Why should they have to tell JACK ahead of time what device to use? Why doesn't it show ALL the inputs and outputs on their computer, and just let them choose which ones to use? This is not a silly view of the universe. As for the "GUI inviting them to change it", that GUI included a selector labelled "Interface", and other labelled "Capture Device" and another labelled "Playback Device". If you wanted to change the device that JACK used (having identified the requirement to do so), which of these things do you think you might choose, as a less sophisticated user?

On Sun, 2 Aug 2015, Gene Heskett wrote: I had decided not to say anything more... I have also dealt with too many people on IRC who don't get it. You can take what Paul deals with on #ardour and multiply that but every distro that has an IRC channel. However, I am not sure the colour labels in the GUI would help. The problem would seem to be identifying internal vs. external cards. A jack GUI might (with some work) put up a dialog box that says "external audio card detected, but internal audio is chosen. Is this what you want?" Then have a checkbox that says "Never show this again". The solution many users expect is the Windows/Pulse solution of showing all audio devices and hiding the fact that sample rate conversion is happening. The profesional world is not that different, the number of cards that take a number of AES3 inputs with a resample stage is not that small (some even take mp3 streams in :P ). Certainly the whole AoIP world is based on the all i/o are visible and usable concept. (and in sync even) How much work should the GUI dev put into making sure the user understands this not so? Or that this is not a good idea? In fact maybe the user understands this is not a good idea, but they have a USB input from their mic/guitar and can only use internal audio output to hear themselves. (why did they buy such a thing in the fist place?) There are some very good sample rate converters out there that work with jack (well one anyway). Maybe it is time to automate connecting extra i/o through s/r blocks. Certainly the idea of being part of an AoIP network and having _all_ i/o connected to jack all the time does not make sense. Some kind of GUI that allows dis/connecting a remote i/o only when needed just makes sense. Most of us here, would want know and choose which AI is synced and which is s/r. But a number of others do not care. They just want to use guitar/mic in through a USB and audio out through internal or even the video conection. The world of inexpensive PCI audio cards is gone (though I hope to get years of service from the one I have). The Linux tools we use need to reflect that. There is a difference between what should be and what is. Making the best use of "what is" is the way forward in my mind. -- Len Ovens www.ovenwerks.net

On 08/02/2015 08:33 AM, Paul Davis wrote: With a chassis full of ASIO sound devices, the idea that someone has to "choose one" for a sound server to function at all is pretty counter intuitive. As you well know, firing up a mac or windows workstation exposes all driver-compatible sound devices to applications. I don't consider it unreasonable for a recent convert to expect the same on linux.

On Sun, 2 Aug 2015 14:17:58 +0000, Fons Adriaensen wrote: aj-snapshot ;), since jack_snapshot has a limitation. But indeed, session managers and qjackctl's Patchbay are very tricky. A script to restore a session, that also runs aj-snapshot is easier to use. Iwonder why e.g. Qtractor does restore all connections directly made with Qtractor, but doesn't offer an option to restore other connections needed for a session too. Some Linux audio software design needs improvement, but we should keep in mind, humans learn very fast. Very young children already drop music instruments with coloured keys: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodica#/media/File:Melodika_kinder.jpg

Fons Adriaensen <fons(a)linuxaudio.org> writes: I think you're right that it's about more than aptitude with computers, but the process of using a computer exposes the problem in ways that other activities don't. Starting from around the mid-90's, computers (and Internet access) started being marketed to ordinary people, not as a geek instrument for things nobody would care about (and honestly, that's the way most people perceived computers in the 80's), but as an appliance, like your toaster or your refridgerator. Ordinary people started actually expecting that a computer with a hard disk and an operating system was something they would be able to bring home and use to some benefit without them having to learn anything. Much of the time, it seemed like they didn't even know what they wanted one for. It was just being marketed so effectively that everyone felt they had to have one, and if you have to blame anything, you can blame the effectiveness of capitalism at making people crave something without even knowing why. Eventually there got to be so many users like this, that for some reason, designers of Linux desktop environments felt the need to cater to this type of user. I think Ubuntu was the first to actually come as close to idiot-proof as what most of them were used to, though Suse and Mandrake made good earlier efforts. So now, even on Linux, we have some users who have somehow managed to get themselves installed on a Unix system who don't know very much about computers in general, and expect that they may not even need to. On the one hand you have users who read about things before they decide to install them, who don't launch/execute anything without first understanding what it's going to do, and who have a general understanding of how their machine works. And then we have people who figure if anything is going to happen that they'll need to know about, a big dialog window will appear in the center of their screen alerting them to it (even if the situation is one they elected themselves), forcing them to click OK to acknowledge that there's something they need to do or know about. This isn't just a Linux problem -- the whole world of computing has been in a conundrum for twenty years now trying to figure out how we're going to accomodate both these types of users. I wouldn't want to run a Mac myself (too closed, not customizable enough), but I have to hand it to Apple -- OSX has probably come closer to this ideal comprimise than any other environment ever made. You've got a braindead simple desktop application environment that tries very hard to make you forget you're even on a computer running on top of something that's very nearly FreeBSD. It runs almost all your closed commercial apps. It also runs almost all your FOSS apps. It has perfect multimedia, but it also has a complete shell environment with X11. Technically speaking, damned impressive. I'll take Linux over it any day, but still, damned impressive. Nah, blame all those marketers in the 90's who sold computers and Internet access to them like it was a living room appliance. At this point, if you try and tell them a computer is very complex instrument that has more configurable settings than most people have time to understand, they won't believe you. They'll think you're some kind of anaorak and go find someone who already agrees with what they've already been told. Have you noticed that consumer desktops no longer have hard disk activity lights? A lot of users didn't know what the light meant, so they stopped providing them. It probably was just confusing people, especially when you consider that all modern OS's have background services that will cause disk access even when the user isn't consciously running anything. It blinks when you do something, it blinks when you're not doing something -- what does it mean? Oh hell, just ignore it. :) Basically, they expect now that a computer is an appliance like their refridgerator. The deepest mystery it's allowed to have is whether the light really goes off when you close the door. -- + Brent A. Busby + "We've all heard that a million monkeys + Sr. UNIX Systems Admin + banging on a million typewriters will + University of Chicago + eventually reproduce the entire works of + James Franck Institute + Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, + Materials Research Ctr + we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky

De : Len Ovens <len(a)ovenwerks.net> À : linux-audio-user <linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org> Envoyé le : Samedi 1 août 2015 18h10 Objet : Re: [LAU] Jack max ports question On Sat, 1 Aug 2015, Paul Davis wrote: [...] but new people to the concept require support or will give up. Many ask a question on IRC and are gone in 60 seconds if no one answers, even with text when they join the channel that says wait. The Linux is no good comments from people are mostly for this reason. Very few of these people have done enough recording/producing to be frustrated with limits that an auto setup system gives them. -- Len Ovens [...]

De : Chris Bannister <cbannister(a)slingshot.co.nz> À : linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org Envoyé le : Samedi 1 août 2015 20h22 Objet : Re: [LAU] Jack max ports question Alcohol does seem to be missing, indeed. P.S. Yahoo's mail system makes the mail *very* hard to read. -- "If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." --- Malcolm X Except Malcoms' sentence & yahoos' bad mood, your mail is kind ofenigmatic.. What do you meant?

De : Chris Bannister <cbannister(a)slingshot.co.nz> À : linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org Envoyé le : Samedi 1 août 2015 21h19 Objet : Re: [LAU] Jack max ports question [No need to send me a personal mail, I'm subscribed to this list.] On Sat, Aug 01, 2015 at 06:47:53PM +0000, fred wrote: You mentioned something about a missing spirit. Perhaps you could elucidate what you meant by your statement? Hum, you cannot read the word "missing" in my previous mails.That said, I have no taste to troll: have a nice weekend.

On 08/01/2015 12:46 AM, Peter P. wrote: something is wrong with your .jackdrc somehow, qjackctl sets the port maximum parameter (-p) before the backend trail (-d...9 anyway. if a -p appears after the first -d is definitively about the frames/period one (aka. buffer size). byee -- rncbc aka. Rui Nuno Capela