[Klug-general] Linux Sound Programming

[Karl Lattimer]

On Sun, 2010-03-21 at 10:28 +0000, George Prowse wrote: 
> On 21/03/2010 09:56, Karl Lattimer wrote:
> >
> >> All of them, with perhaps the exception of ALSA seems like it was
> >> dreampt up in someone's potting shed as an answer to a problem that
> >> never should have existed.
> >
> > I might forward that little snippet to Lennart Poettering... He loves
> > Pulseaudio abuse :P
> >
> > Developing for pulseaudio is no different from developing for ALSA as
> > pulse is just a way of managing all the gumpf that goes on, giving you
> > application specific volume controls and various other nifty features
> > which make sound useful to the desktop user. It is akin to CoreAudio on
> > macosx but with some extra features I think makes it pretty darn
> > nifty...
> >
> > Considering that Lennart, one of the most talented developers in the
> > world if you don't believe me, check his stats;
> > http://www.ohloh.net/accounts/mezcalero would have designed this in a
> > potting shed is a pretty big insult considering; "Your search - george
> > prowse - did not match anything." on Ohloh.net
> 
> I have nothing out in the wild or anywhere else and I certainly wouldn't 
> never even dream of judging myself on the basis of an ego search.

You're basically saying "it's OK to criticise even though I'm not
qualified to do so". My search on ohloh was to point that out so nobody
else on this list thinks you are actually qualified to criticise a
developer of Lennart's stature. There is no "ego search" involved here,
quite the contrary, I was showing how you have no right to be so
egotistical as to criticise someone far far more qualified in his work
than you are.

> >
> > Pulseaudio may not have been perfect through the development, but it's
> > getting pretty damn close to where it is supposed to be.
> >
> > Just to clairfy the "problem that never should have existed";
> >
> > * ALSA and OSS lock the sound hardware
> > * System sounds at the same volume as the movie you're watching
> > * Multiple applications using the sound hardware causing blocking e.g.
> > play a game for an hour and all the system sounds that happened during,
> > playback one after the other.
> > * Real time mixing of audio channels
> >
> > ALSA is a great way of communicating with the hardware but it provides
> > no user space management of the audio.
> >
> My point about any of them/all of them is that people are *still* trying 
> to sort these things out when it should have been done 15 years ago. 
> Nothing has changed. The have a sound card, they have speakers and they 
> have drivers.

Lots of things have changed in 15 years, I won't bore you with a list.

> The problem is that no-one can decide anything - sound or otherwise. 
> Everything just gets drowned by bickering whether foo should be in 
> kernelspace or userspace and then some people suggest something radical 
> and they get shot down (probably much in the same way that i'm doing 
> here) and never come back.

There is no bickering, there is kernel space ALSA, and Pulse because non
of that stuff should be in kernel space... This isn't an argument it was
a discussion before the pulseaudio project was started. That's right a
nice mature grown up discussion with kernel devs and app devs.

You weren't in the loop on the discussions so you cannot judge the
actions of those involved... Read the mailing lists, you'll see how it
came together.

> It's a mess out there and until people stop thinking that everything is 
> just fine then nothing will ever happen. Pulseaudio could be the 
> greatest thing on the face of the planet, we could all bow down, worship 
> it and Tom Cruise could jump up and down on a sofa about it but until it 
> becomes synonymous with sound on linux then most people will never know.

I think it's already synonymous with sound on linux if you're well
informed enough to realise that. It isn't a mess out there, it's pretty
sane, but muddying the waters with FUD as you're doing is detrimental to
everyone.

K,