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On 04/20/2013 05:34 AM, Walter Dnes wrote: |
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> On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 09:28:03AM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote |
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> |
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|
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[snip] |
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|
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>> If you need it, PA can be great. Not everyone needs or wants it, many |
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>> people are quite content to just carry on as they always did and aren't |
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>> fazed with minor niggles about their audio. You seem to fall in this |
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>> category, so do many others. |
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> |
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> I think you've hit the nail on the head. Complex setups require |
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> complex software... deal with it. An analogy is that an 18-wheeler |
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> semi-tractor trailer with a 17-speed manual transmission (plus air brakes |
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> that require months of training to manage/use) is much more powerful |
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> than a Chevy Sonic hatchback when it comes to hauling huge loads. But |
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> for someoneone who merely wants to zip out to the supermarket and buy a |
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> week's groceries, the hatchback is much more appropriate. |
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> |
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> Similarly, PulseAudio may be better at handling complex situations |
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> like you describe. The yelling and screaming you're hearing are from |
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> the 99% of people whose setups are not complex enough to justify |
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> PulseAudio. Making 100% of setups more complex in order to handle the |
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> 1% of edge cases is simply wrong. |
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> |
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|
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The sad thing is, I've not infrequently wound up with sound systems that |
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were *too* complex for PulseAudio to handle. At least, they were too |
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complex for the configuration interfaces available, and documentation |
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for how to do things more precisely (without writing code) was not |
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forthcoming. |
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|
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Here's a scenario exactly as I was dealing with it around 2008: |
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|
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Dodo was a combination HTPC/desktop box.[1] It had five displays and |
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three audio interfaces attached to it. Four of the displays sat on my |
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desk, one of the displays was a 32" 720p TV that served as the home |
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theater screen.[2] The machine was sometimes used in both roles at once. |
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|
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The three audio interfaces were: |
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|
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1) The onboard audio, which I sometimes used while using the box as a |
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workstation. |
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2) A USB audio device, which I used if I was chilling on the couch and |
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needed localized audio |
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3) A professional audio interface (I forget what, now) that fed my |
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receiver as well as a crossover that built an LFE channel. |
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|
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PA kinda worked in this scenario, up until I physically interacted with |
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the USB audio device. If I plugged into that, *everything* would |
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suddenly route through the USB audio device, despite my careful routing |
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of different applications to different audio sources. |
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|
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If I'd learned to use JACK, things probably would have been easier...but |
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I was using Ubuntu,[3] everything seemed designed around leveraging PA, |
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and I hadn't learned to discard fancy desktop environments yet. |
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|
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You know the sad thing, though? ALSA would support that configuration |
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very well, too. It has enough internal routing and mixing logic that |
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it'd work. |
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|
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|
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[1] It was also the home gateway router, too, but that's another |
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story...and not much of one. |
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[2] Incidentally, this was the same setup where I'd successfully mixed |
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ATI and nVidia graphics hardware. I used the nvidia proprietary drivers |
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and the open-source support for ATI...which admittedly wasn't much. But |
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that's another story. |
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[3] I wasn't consistently using Gentoo yet. That rather relates to the |
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machine doubling as the network gateway...[4] |
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[4] No, I wouldn't do a setup this complicated as one machine as a |
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keystone in the network. At least, not again. |