Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Phonon + PulseAudio Problem

["Canek Peláez Valdés" <caneko@gmail.com>]

On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 1:02 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
[snip]
> I don't do professional audio.  I have a normal PC.  And just like I
> sometimes use a synth in Windows (I'm just a hobbyist), I'd like to do the
> same in Linux.

You can; but you have to use special software, because yours is a
special case. The normal desktop/laptop user does not use a synth.

> ALSA/Pulse needing third-party stuff just to get basics right (acceptable
> latency; not *ultra* low latency, just acceptable one) is a sign that
> they're not designed right.

Your definition of "acceptable" is *ultra* low to me, and many others.
To me acceptable latency means that the audio system does not waste my
laptop/phone battery.

> And in the end, you know what?  Even if OSS4 had a broken design, it's still
> better, because it works better.

This is your principal problem: you think your use-case is universal,
and it's not. To me Alsa+PulseAudio works better because it allows the
battery of my laptop to last for hours while I see a movie with my
bluetooth headset. With the latencies you want, that's not possible. I
believe my use-case is more general.

>  At least it gets the basics right.  Other
> operating systems are much more advanced in that manner. It's ALSA that
> holds Linux audio back.

Jack uses ALSA. From the Jack FAQ page (http://jackaudio.org/faq):

<quote>
Doesn't use JACK add latency?

There is NO extra latency caused by using JACK for audio input and
output. When we say none, we mean absolutely zero. The only impact of
using JACK is a slight increase in the amount of work done by the CPU
to process a given chunk of audio, which means that in theory you
could not get 100% of the processing power that you might get it if
your application(s) used ALSA or CoreAudio directly. However, given
that the difference is less than 1%, and that your system will be
unstable before you get close to 80% of the theoretical processing
power, the effect is completely disregardable.
</quote>

ALSA works great. And for regular users, with PulseAudio both are full
of awesome awesomeness. For your use-case, you should try Jack.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Instituto de Matemáticas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México