19 Jun
2005
19 Jun
'05
1:25 p.m.
Greetings:
The subject says it all.
My own "Linux audio sucks" hobbyhorse:
No way to recall a complex configuration of apps and plugins with
all settings intact. If I use a complicated setup with multiple synths
and plugins I have no way to recall these applications to their previous
settings. LASH/LADCCA was supposed to address this situation but I don't
know where that project stands at this point.
And your favorite is... ?
Best,
dp
19 Jun
19 Jun
1:45 p.m.
And your favorite is... ?
The ALSA versus OSS war. This blows.
"ALSA compatability layer" in OSS, "OSS compatability layer in ALSA"
...
The fact is, the OSS guys profit from perpetuating this problem. I
would never buy a driver from them, because they have a vested
interest in keeping audio non-functioning in the default Linux code
base, and money spent on an OSS driver is money spent on future
borked kernels ..
--
;
Jay Vaughan
4:08 p.m.
The ALSA versus OSS war. This blows.
"ALSA compatability layer" in OSS, "OSS compatability layer
in ALSA" ...
The fact is, the OSS guys profit from perpetuating this
problem. I would never buy a driver from them, because
they have a vested interest in keeping audio
non-functioning in the default Linux code base, and money
spent on an OSS driver is money spent on future borked
kernels ..
the OSS guys try to preserve their income, and that's
understandable.
OTOH, OSS is already marked as deprecated in the kernel and I
hope it will be removed soon.
The OSS emulation was a good idea, but as soon as OSS gets
completely removed from the kernel the best thing would be to
remove the ALSA emulation so noone uses it anymore and
existing apps need to be rewritten to be [see thread in
LAD] ;-) .
Best regards
ce
20 Jun
20 Jun
3:58 a.m.
On Sun, Jun 19, 2005 at 08:08:32PM +0200, Christoph Eckert wrote:
OTOH, OSS is already marked as deprecated in the
kernel and I
hope it will be removed soon.
While I agree, I do recognize that OSS provides a nice, consistent
cross-Unix interface for audio. There is lots of value in that.
There's something sort of unfortuante about the "L" in ALSA.
--
Ross Vandegrift
ross(a)lug.udel.edu
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who
make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine
man in the bonds of Hell."
--St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37
6:19 a.m.
While I agree, I do recognize that OSS provides a
nice,
consistent cross-Unix interface for audio. There is lots
of value in that.
I agree that OSS has two advantages:
* easy to use via /dev/dsp and /dev/midi
* Cross-Platform
But I also agree that ALSA has lots of advantages over OSS.
There's something sort of unfortuante about the
"L" in
ALSA.
Yep, it is, but I'm just happy about this. Maybe some day it
will happen that ALSA will spread on other systems, too. I
know that this is a licencing problem, BTW.
Best regards
ce
2:32 p.m.
On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 10:19:30AM +0200, Christoph Eckert wrote:
Oh yea, I definitely agree here. I think it's just another case where the
traditional approaches to a problem have been far surpassed by free
alternatives ::-)
And if, when I get around to trying the new dmix code, it turns out to
make all the consumer apps behave nicely again, then ALSA will a 100%
totally sweet replacement.
--
Ross Vandegrift
ross(a)lug.udel.edu
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who
make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine
man in the bonds of Hell."
--St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37
There's
something sort of unfortuante about the "L" in
ALSA.
Yep, it is, but I'm just happy about this. Maybe some day it
will happen that ALSA will spread on other systems, too. I
know that this is a licencing problem, BTW. 
3:33 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] What parts of Linux audio [need improvement] ?
On 20 June 2005 at 12:32, ross(a)jose.lug.udel.edu wrote:
> Yep, it is, but I'm just happy about this.
Maybe some day it
> will happen that ALSA will spread on other systems, too. I
> know that this is a licencing problem, BTW.
What do they use on Mac's for their sound drivers/server?
--
Kevin
4:10 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] What parts of Linux audio [need improvement] ?
What do they use on Mac's for their sound
drivers/server?
Paul Davis has some knowledge abot it. The complete system
seems to be called coreaudio and seems to handle all audio
related stuff transparently.
Best regards
ce
4:59 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: [linux-audio-dev] What parts of Linux audio simply suck ?
On Sun, 2005-06-19 at 12:01 -0400, Dave Phillips wrote:
And your favorite is... ?
Skype and other closed source apps which refuse to support ALSA
properly, leading to tons of useless bug reports and users blaming the
problem on ALSA.
Lee
5:14 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: [linux-audio-dev] What parts of Linux audio simply suck ?
On Sun, 2005-06-19 at 15:02 -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
On Sun, 2005-06-19 at 12:01 -0400, Dave Phillips
wrote:
A close second is bonehead vendors like Nvidia who STILL won't release
enough information on their hardware to allow proper drivers to be
written, which leads to infuriating bug reports of the form "it works
fine in Windows so I know it's an ALSA problem, why don't you fix it
already".
Lee
And your favorite is... ?
Skype and other closed source apps which refuse to support ALSA
properly, leading to tons of useless bug reports and users blaming the
problem on ALSA. 
5:42 p.m.
Dave Phillips wrote:
Greetings:
The subject says it all.
My own "Linux audio sucks" hobbyhorse:
No way to recall a complex configuration of apps and plugins with all
settings intact. If I use a complicated setup with multiple synths and
plugins I have no way to recall these applications to their previous
settings. LASH/LADCCA was supposed to address this situation but I don't
know where that project stands at this point.
And your favorite is... ?
few more basic problems:
MULTIPLE SOUNDS:
the completely ridiculous (from the user viewpoint) non-handling of
multiple sounds being played at one time (if HW does not suport it).
as far as user is concerned various apps suddenly get frozen, there's
no indication they tried to play audio and then you have e.g. mozilla
looking like it's frozen becuase one or another plugin (flash usually)
tries to open audio...
Not only it's incredibly nasty towards user but it also gives rise to
sound servers like arts and eds which pretend to be solutions while they
just make the problems worse - they are in userspace and they only work
for apps that support them so you're stuck with seemingly frozen apps...
looks like dmix solves the problem but it seems like it's not that
easy to set it up (I haven't tried since I have soundcard with hw
support for multiple channels).
SOUNBLASTER LIVE MIXER:
total mystery, no master control etc.
PORTABILITY:
it's cool that generally considered better solution (alsa versus oss)
seems to be winning but that brings us to linux being windows:-) I mean
alsa is linux specific while oss is fairly portable solution.
erik
5:58 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-06-19 at 12:42 -0700, Erik Steffl wrote:
MULTIPLE SOUNDS:
looks like dmix solves the problem but it seems like it's not that
easy to set it up (I haven't tried since I have soundcard with hw
support for multiple channels).
Fixed in ALSA 1.0.9.
SOUNBLASTER LIVE MIXER:
total mystery
This was never really an ALSA problem. The confusion due to the large
number of mixer elements is resolved with recent versions of alsamixer
(by splitting the controls into Playback and Capture), and the Gnome
2.10 mixer now only displays the 4 or 5 most important controls by
default.
, no master control etc.
I agree that this is still a bug. Should be fixed in the next ALSA
release. Until then it's trivial to work around, and could in fact be
solved 100% in the mixer apps.
PORTABILITY:
No comment.
Lee
6:50 p.m.
looks like dmix solves the problem
AFAIK this depends. It solves the problem for apps which want
to access the ALSA device (HW:0 etc.), but as soon as an app
tries to get OSS access via /dev/dsp DMIX cannot do
softwaremixing. Maybe I'm wrong, but AFAIK such apps need to
be started with the aoss wrapper. And no user starts mozilla
as "aoss mozilla", does he?
but it seems like it's
not that easy to set it up (I haven't tried since I have
soundcard with hw support for multiple channels).
AFAIK the latest ALSA and kernel brings DMIX per default
without the need to create an asoundrc.
Best regards
ce
7:08 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-06-19 at 22:50 +0200, Christoph Eckert wrote:
Then the distros need to provide a wrapper script, or the mozilla devs
should make sure that plugins are launched via aoss.
Lee
looks like
dmix solves the problem
AFAIK this depends. It solves the problem for apps which want
to access the ALSA device (HW:0 etc.), but as soon as an app
tries to get OSS access via /dev/dsp DMIX cannot do
softwaremixing. Maybe I'm wrong, but AFAIK such apps need to
be started with the aoss wrapper. And no user starts mozilla
as "aoss mozilla", does he?
7:27 p.m.
Greetings:
Btw, I recently discovered kasound, a configuration utility for creating
a custom .asoundrc file. It's here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kasound/
Alas, it's KDE-dependent and I'm out of date with current KDE. However,
it does address another one of my Linux audio botherations: A lack of
GUI-based ALSA configuration utilities.
I'm glad Clemens Ladisch is here to help, but it would be sweet to have
a utility for writing a custom modules.conf too.
Best,
dp
Christoph Eckert wrote:
looks like dmix
solves the problem
AFAIK this depends. It solves the problem for apps which want
to access the ALSA device (HW:0 etc.), but as soon as an app
tries to get OSS access via /dev/dsp DMIX cannot do
softwaremixing. Maybe I'm wrong, but AFAIK such apps need to
be started with the aoss wrapper. And no user starts mozilla
as "aoss mozilla", does he?
but it seems like it's
not that easy to set it up (I haven't tried since I have
soundcard with hw support for multiple channels).
AFAIK the latest ALSA and kernel brings DMIX per default
without the need to create an asoundrc.
Best regards
ce
8:16 p.m.
Btw, I recently discovered kasound, a configuration
utility
for creating a custom .asoundrc file. It's here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kasound/
Cool. But instead of a complete GUI solution, I'd prefer to
have a shell backend which then could be adopted by different
frontends.
I once wanted to create a replacement for alsaconf called
audioconf, but I failed due to my miserable knowledges :) .
Alas, it's KDE-dependent and I'm out of date
with current
KDE. However, it does address another one of my Linux audio
botherations: A lack of GUI-based ALSA configuration
utilities.
I'm glad Clemens Ladisch is here to help, but it would be
sweet to have a utility for writing a custom modules.conf
too.
Configuration tools can free the shoulders of Clemens, Takashi
et al., so any work on them is much appreciated.
Best regards
ce
20 Jun
20 Jun
4:04 a.m.
On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 12:15:55AM +0200, Christoph Eckert wrote:
I once wanted to create a replacement for alsaconf
called
audioconf, but I failed due to my miserable knowledges :) .
What did you have in mind? I'm pretty handly with shell scripts, and
never really had much of a problem with modules.conf or asound.conf
(though I still haven't put together the new dmix code which is
supposed to clear up a few of my annoyances).
--
Ross Vandegrift
ross(a)lug.udel.edu
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who
make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine
man in the bonds of Hell."
--St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37
8:43 p.m.
What did you have in mind? I'm pretty handly with
shell
scripts, and never really had much of a problem with
modules.conf or asound.conf (though I still haven't put
together the new dmix code which is supposed to clear up a
few of my annoyances).
a replacement for alsaconf which could also deal with USB (and
firewire cards as soon as it gets familiar with linux), which
can not only write a new but only read an existing
configuration, which allows the user to order the cards as
desired including the ability to set the default device and
so on.
Furthermore a subsection which automatically tries to look if
there are realtime modules and to help the user setting them
up as well as a small benchmark which creates a default jackd
config for the user.
Errr, that's it so far, and it's just unrealistic to achieve
all these goals ;-) .
Where I stuck was autoprobing. I wanted to probe all existing
modules step by step and then configure the one I was told
that it did fit a card. UNfortunately, I get no error result
when I load a module for which there's no actual hardware :
( .
Anyway, meanwhile there's kasound and the author plans to
include some of the above features, so I'll help with it
during the autumn and winter months.
Best regards
ce
4:02 a.m.
On Sun, Jun 19, 2005 at 12:01:14PM -0400, Dave Phillips wrote:
And your favorite is... ?
There's no good notation-centric MIDI editor for composition. The
notation editor in Rosegarden might one day start to become usable,
but right now it's one of the most frustratingly poor programs I've
used.
OTOH, digital audio with free software is light years ahead of what I
used to be able to do with propritary software on Windows. Things
perform and sound awesome!
But I'll probably always be too much of a classical musician to get
too far from a staff...
--
Ross Vandegrift
ross(a)lug.udel.edu
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who
make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine
man in the bonds of Hell."
--St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37
6:21 a.m.
There's no good notation-centric MIDI editor for
composition. The notation editor in Rosegarden might one
day start to become usable, but right now it's one of the
most frustratingly poor programs I've used.
did you try the other candidates like mscore, Noteedit or even
lilypond?
If you need high quality scores for professional printing,
then lilypond is most probably the thing you want to give a
chance.
Best regards
ce
2:40 p.m.
On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 10:21:44AM +0200, Christoph Eckert wrote:
I haven't tried Noteedit yet, and a quick google search found that
rumors of its death had been greatly exaggerated ::-). I'll download
it and give it a shot.
mscore and lilypond are more for producing the professional
plate-style scores. I'm not trying to do that, rather, I'm trying to
compose a score. To me, that means quick and easy event selection, entry,
auditioning, and modification.
--
Ross Vandegrift
ross(a)lug.udel.edu
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who
make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine
man in the bonds of Hell."
--St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37
There's no
good notation-centric MIDI editor for
composition. ?The notation editor in Rosegarden might one
day start to become usable, but right now it's one of the
most frustratingly poor programs I've used.
did you try the other candidates like mscore, Noteedit or even
lilypond?
3:32 p.m.
I haven't tried Noteedit yet, and a quick google
search
found that rumors of its death had been greatly exaggerated
::-). I'll download it and give it a shot.
You want to visit the Linuxtag which happens the next week
(Wednesday to Saturday) and see the current maintainer
presenting Noteedit at the audio booth ;-) .
Best regards
ce
5:02 p.m.
On Monday 20 June 2005 19:32, Christoph Eckert wrote:
You want to visit the Linuxtag which happens the next
week
(Wednesday to Saturday) and see the current maintainer
presenting Noteedit at the audio booth ;-) .
And he will be clothed in a really cool t-shirt with the lad-logo on the back.
8-)
Arnold
PS to the LinuxAudio@LinuxTag: yes, the shirts are finished!
--
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the
Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be
replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
-- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
9:41 a.m.
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Hash: SHA1
On Sunday 19 June 2005 18:01, Dave Phillips wrote:
Greetings:
The subject says it all.
My own "Linux audio sucks" hobbyhorse:
No way to recall a complex configuration of apps and plugins with
all settings intact. If I use a complicated setup with multiple synths
and plugins I have no way to recall these applications to their previous
settings. LASH/LADCCA was supposed to address this situation but I don't
know where that project stands at this point.
And your favorite is... ?
... just what you mentioned above.
But for me it's not just a question of memorizing sessions. LASH/LADCCA could
be a big step towards Open Source music.
The Free and Open Source _software_ world has a number of licenses to choose
from, and tools to make the best possible use of them.
We have a free licenses for content now, and their popularity is rising.
- - Burkhard
- --
Libre Audio, Libre Video, Libre Software: www.AGNULA.org
Public key available here:
<http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xFD82303B>
key FP 0A65 5E83 F44F 47A5 3DFC 19C5 7779 E411 FD82 303B
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linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
26 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
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Arnold Krille -
Burkhard Woelfel -
Christoph Eckert -
Dave Phillips -
Erik Steffl -
Jay Vaughan -
Kevin Cosgrove -
Lee Revell -
ross＠jose.lug.udel.edu