> On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Don Levey wrote: > For me, I want to do music with pro-gear on Linux and like to have source > code access to all sw I'm using (so I don't have to rely on certain > companies staying in business to keep on working using the methods I use > today).
For me this describes my hopes for ALSA as well though perhaps a little less weight on the "pro" angle and more on amateur enthusiast. What I want to be able to do is run Ardour and whatever the closest analog to Sound Forge is without having to overly destroy my day to day desktop use. > ALSA does work very well and has done so for a long time! Most of the > problems people have been complaining about in this (and related) threads, > have been about specific cards. There will be _never_ be a moment where > ALSA has perfect support for all cards, as new hardware is released all > the time! So postponing the 1.0.x release for this reason would have been > absurd! My biggest personal issue with ALSA is that I have been so far unable to find any documentation that explains what the configuration file directives represent. I don't know about you but I find it a lot easier to set something up if I at least have a basic understanding of the topology and nature of it. To my knowledge the layout for the config file formats, directives, etc. and what they actually do is totally lacking and it is in question if even some of the developers know from posts I have seen here. If I have missed a FAQ somewhere that actually documents what the otherwise arcane syntax represents, please point me to it and I will STFU until I have had a good read (and offer my apologies for clouding the air further). =) My other complaint is that ALSA seems to have missed the boat by seperating device abstraction and low level driver functionality. I honestly do not see why JACK is a separate project. This pretty much guarantees that developers will be stuck trying to decide what they write to - direct to ALSA (messing up any existing sound daemons), arts, JACK, whatever Gnome uses, dmix, roll their own, etc. Getting enough critical mass for any of these options is going to be very difficult. I most definitely do not feel that the ALSA project owes me anything and I appreciate the fact that I can have a Free platform that gives me control as opposed to strictly antagonistic commercial interests. That said, sound is so important to my day to day use and being in constant contact with fellow musicians due to my own volunteer efforts and interests, I am painfully aware of the fallout from the current ALSA state (documentation being the utmost problem, seperation of abstraction and low level the next biggy). So far, each attempt at getting things working has reached the frustration level far before problems have been solved meaning that I still have to boot into Windows to record anything. I haven't even tried the latest ALSA 1.* yet because of the state of the documentation (and not wanting to break my existing fragile partial OSS / ALSA setup). But I will keep trying and I do have hope that this situation can get better. Cheers -- |) __,,_____________ moron : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (| |) < ___________/ EEEI news : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (| |) / /-' musician community : http://ampfea.org (| |) /___/ industrial & DIY culture : http://industrial.org (| |) deterrent industries : http://deterrent.net (| ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by EclipseCon 2004 Premiere Conference on Open Tools Development and Integration See the breadth of Eclipse activity. February 3-5 in Anaheim, CA. http://www.eclipsecon.org/osdn _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
