Re: [gentoo-user] What is the best audio system?

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 2:38 PM, Paul Hartman
> <paul.hartman+gentoo@×××××.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 4:31 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Paul Hartman
>>> <paul.hartman+gentoo@×××××.com> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Willie Matthews
>>>> <matthews.willie@×××××.com> wrote:
>>>>> Right now I use pulseaudio on my laptop and desktop. Is there something
>>>>> else out there that can handle multiple audio streams?
>>>>
>>>> alsa dmix
>>>>
>>>
>>> Isn't dmix pretty much automatic in als these days? I suspect that's
>>> how KDE supports multiple audio streams by default.
>>
>> Yep, I think it's automatic since alsa 1.0.9 or so.
>>
>
> Yeah, when you wrote dmix the light turned on about how KDE (and I
> suspect most desktop managers) is likely doing it.

GNOME uses PulseAudio by default, and since 3.0 is actually mandatory.
I believe Xfce uses PA also, and (please, tell me if I'm wrong) KDE
also by default uses PA.

Jack (according to the PA maintainers) is for professional audio processing.

And please keep in mind that PulseAudio is so much more than "multiple
audio streams". It's per-application volume control, seamlessly moving
audio streams from one audio card to another, and really easy
management of things like USB soundcards and bluetooth headsets.

dmix *may* be able to handle multiple audio streams (in practice, in
my personal experience, it always requires more work than PA); but it
will never be able to do the other stuff PA handles.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México