On Wed, 2009-08-05 at 21:53 +0200, Jens M Andreasen wrote: > >From TFA: > > --8<---------------------------------- > Go to System->Preferences->Sound, click on the Devices tab, and check > out the pulldown menu next to ‘Sound Events’ at the top of the panel. > You will see various acronyms, possibly including cryptic-looking > technologies like OSS, ESD, ALSA, JACK, and Pulse Audio. These acronyms > represent a byzantine tangle of conflicting technologies that over time, > and due to political reasons or backwards compatibility, have ended up > cohabiting with one another. ‘Frankenstein’ might be an accurate > metaphor here. > > > Thankfully, there is a simpler way, which is the combination of ALSA [a > high-performance, kernel-level audio and MIDI system] and JACK [a system > for creating low-latency audio, MIDI, and sync connections between > applications and computers]. The battle-scarred among us have learned to > ignore all the other audio cruft bolted on to Ubuntu and just use ALSA > and JACK. One can think of the ALSA/JACK stack, the heart of most pro > Linux studios, as the Core Audio of Linux and in my opinion Jack should > be the first thing installed on any musicians laptop. I’d go so far as > to suggest placing it in the Startup Applications so it’s always > running. > -------------------8<--------------------------------------------------
IMO without a ton of effort Jack could, and should, be turned into a viable default installation audio system (or the bottom layer of such a system, at least). The desktop guys certainly aren't ever going to get it right. The above problem is a very real one as far as people's perception of GNU/Linux as an audio system. What a mess. We can do better. -dr _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-dev