On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 08:57:53AM +0100, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote: > On 02/17/2014 08:37 AM, Chow Loong Jin wrote: > > It might just be that DDs/"computer experts" just have more customized > > setups > > that break in interesting ways when effort isn't spent porting the > > configuration > > changes to a new system. What follows is "$new_thing sucks because $feature > > in > > $old_thing that I customized half a decade ago and forgot about doesn't > > work. If > > I, a DD/'computer expert' can't get it working, how could it ever be > > suitable > > for a layman?" > > Exactly what I have been thinking all the time.
No, I don't buy that argument. It is based on the incorrect assumption that all computer experts want to configure *every* part of their system. I'll buy that many experts do more configuring than other people, and yes, in some cases that might result in the defaults no longer doing what they should be doing. But given the number of people who seem to have taken the step of going "sound isn't working, oh pulseaudio is installed, let's throw it out", I doubt *all* of these have been customizing their sound in minute detail. After all, let's face it, not all computer experts are audiophiles. > And I find the argument "all DDs are computer experts, so if they > can't get it working it must be broken" a particularly bad one. Granted. But I'd like to make a few observations: - I didn't even know there was a way to configure pulseaudio. I have had cases of pulseaudio being installed without me knowing that was the case, when I did a few obvious things like running "dpkg -l" on some relevant packages, and not seeing any configuration files; so that didn't get me to the right place. - alsamixer is a fairly low-level mixer tool written specifically for alsa. When pulseaudio is installed, however, the default mixer visible in alsamixer is the single pulse slider. While it's possible to select the 'hardware' alsa mixer (with F6), the fact that really ALSA-specific tools don't even really manage ALSA anymore (by default) is confusing. - If the low-level driver does the right thing (in this case, produce audio) while the magic layer on top does not, then the magic layer on top is a menace. Whether the layer on top has good reasons for making guesses or not does not matter; if it does a worse job than the low-level driver, clearly something is wrong. It has been my experience that pulse has in fact done a worse job at getting things to Just Work(TM) on the hardware that I own. [...] -- This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space. If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you will not go to space today. -- http://xkcd.com/1133/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20140217214914.ge32...@grep.be