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An Introduction to Linux Audio (O'Reilly)
An Introduction to Linux Audio (O'Reilly)
Posted Aug 3, 2007 11:26 UTC (Fri) by ken (subscriber, #625)In reply to: An Introduction to Linux Audio (O'Reilly) by rfunk
Parent article: An Introduction to Linux Audio (O'Reilly)
Yes it was a rant and I do not agree with a lot he said the fact is that sound is a mess. I did not know how big a mess until I tried to do some sound work myself about 2 years ago and got seriously confused on what to use. In the end I selected alsa with libasound but it was not based on any evaluation just that since it was supposed to be the new and better way to do it and it was a "realtime" project so I did not want to put more layering than absolutely necessary in the sound path. It's newer that for sure but better ??. That project is in need of someone to make a coherent document on how to use it.
As a user with a soundblaser (emuk10) based one I have a alsamixer covering two three screens width with options most doing nothing at all as far as I know and I never ever know what knob to change.
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An Introduction to Linux Audio (O'Reilly)
Posted Aug 3, 2007 14:13 UTC (Fri) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]
Seems to me that your issues are addressed in the article. Be sure to read allthe way through to the JACK part. (Despite being an additional layer, JACK is
specifically intended for realtime audio.)
BTW, the emu10k, which I also have, is actually a rather high-capability chip.
Some people like to take advantage of all those capabilities, and ALSA allows
that while OSS doesn't. Don't blame ALSA for the fact that your sound chip has
more capabilities than you need.
An Introduction to Linux Audio (O'Reilly)
Posted Aug 3, 2007 14:15 UTC (Fri) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]
Quoting myself:"Don't blame ALSA for the fact that your sound chip has more capabilities than
you need."
... or that alsamixer doesn't have a very good/smart user interface.
An Introduction to Linux Audio (O'Reilly)
Posted Aug 3, 2007 23:52 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Alsamixer is fine.
It's a low-level way to interact directly with the mixer settings present on your sound card.
The problem is that it's currently the _best_ way to do the mixer settings. There needs to be a higher level way of interacting with it. A standardized something-or-other that effectively abstracts away the differences in audio cards.
A generic way to interact with audio cards can never effectively suit the needs for advanced users, hence the need for alsamixer and the need for something that accurately reflects the capabilities of the hardware.
Our problem is that there isn't anything for people that don't give a crap about the capabilities of their audio card and just want to make recordings.
An Introduction to Linux Audio (O'Reilly)
Posted Aug 4, 2007 8:01 UTC (Sat) by bersl2 (guest, #34928) [Link]
The problem is that it's currently the _best_ way to do the mixer settings. There needs to be a higher level way of interacting with it. A standardized something-or-other that effectively abstracts away the differences in audio cards.HAL, perhaps?