From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1OFHZH-00070V-3z for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 21 May 2010 02:02:31 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4F4DAE0851; Fri, 21 May 2010 07:01:56 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 13F28E0851 for ; Fri, 21 May 2010 07:01:56 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BB7FE1B4004 for ; Fri, 21 May 2010 07:01:55 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -2.983 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.983 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=-0.384, BAYES_00=-2.599] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 9qSsYOtWIKsf for ; Fri, 21 May 2010 07:01:48 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lo.gmane.org (lo.gmane.org [80.91.229.12]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8759C65B02 for ; Fri, 21 May 2010 07:01:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OFMEn-0008I0-TF for gentoo-user@gentoo.org; Fri, 21 May 2010 09:01:41 +0200 Received: from athedsl-388907.home.otenet.gr ([79.131.71.41]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 21 May 2010 09:01:41 +0200 Received: from realnc by athedsl-388907.home.otenet.gr with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 21 May 2010 09:01:41 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org connect(): No such file or directory From: Nikos Chantziaras Subject: [gentoo-user] Re: Phonon + PulseAudio Problem Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 10:02:08 +0300 Organization: Lucas Barks Message-ID: References: <201005192159.29314.koesterreich@gmx.net> <201005201015.41416.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> <201005201313.21106.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: athedsl-388907.home.otenet.gr User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100410 Thunderbird/3.0.4 In-Reply-To: Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Archives-Salt: ffc3d182-97a8-4869-97d9-30db7b495143 X-Archives-Hash: 2440fbce66ce57ac25bc9f26bcf730d1 On 05/21/2010 02:03 AM, Canek Pel=C3=A1ez Vald=C3=A9s wrote: > On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 5:08 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wr= ote: >> Because as soon as you disable ALSA dmix and/or Pulse, suddenly you ge= t >> acceptable sound latency. >> >> With OSS4, which has in-kernel mixing, it doesn't matter if you enable= the >> mixer or disable it; sound always has acceptable latency. > > By that reasoning, the GUI should be in-kernel too. It would be then > really responsive al the time. I don't buy the argument. Then why does dmix lag? >> Thus, I can only conclude that mixing has to happen in-kernel. But I = base >> this only on the ALSA/Pulse vs OSS4 comparison. It could also be that= the >> user-space implementation of ALSA just sucks. But that's hard to beli= eve, >> since if that were the case they would have fixed it several years ago >> already. > > No, it doesn't has to happen in-kernel; all the linux based phones > (which deal primarily with, you know, audio, including heavy use of > multimedia) use PulseAudio. And these are not very powerful machines; > so if the mixing in user space works in low powered devices, it must > work everywhere. I don't buy this argument either. Then why does dmix lag? >> It sounds reasonable from a designer's point of view. But a system is >> useless if it's only designed good but doesn't actually work in a >> satisfactory manner. > > It works for me, I repeat, and for a lot of other folks too. It's not > only a design decision made because it's "elegant"; it's made because > it works "in a satisfactory manner" (ex. me, others, Linux phones), > and because it's more flexible: put it in the kernel, and you loose > the capacity to do important changes and extensions (specially with > the way the Linux kernel development works). Why on earth would you want to put it in the kernel in the first place?=20 That has nothing to do with the low level mixer. > In short, because it works "in a satisfactory manner" (to me and many > others, including all the N900 and Android users out there), I also > don't buy this argument. > >> Sorry, that just pretentious of you here. PulseAudio is the most flam= ed at, >> hated, sound-related software around. And this is because it does *no= t* >> work for many, many users, and the first thing they try to do is find = out >> how to disable the thing. > > Sorry, but I believe the you are the one being pretentious; how long > has been since you tried PulseAudio? It has come a loooong way, and I > haven't seen any real flames against PulseAudio in many months (and > it's enabled in all major distributions). And that is because it's > working (I repeat my words) "for me and many more". I've tried it 6 days ago. Ubuntu 10.04. It's still a laggy, buggy,=20 pile of ****. First thing I did was to disable it. >> You're mistaken in that a mixer should be in the same boat as network >> streaming, bluetooth, etc, etc. I believe the *mixer* should be in-ke= rnel. >> Everything else doesn't need to be. PulseAudio's extreme latency pr= oblems >> (which even upstream admits can't be fixed easily) stem from that. > > I respectfully disagree; the kernel should pass along data and > messages to the sound hardware, and everything else (*including > mixing*) should be in user space. Not only in theory from an academic > and aesthetic point of view; *it also works*, to me, to many users who > doesn't complain (despite PulseAudio being used by default in ALL > major distributions), and to ALL the users of Android and MeeGo. Yes, you and many people also find it acceptable to run their games with=20 10FPS, or to take their systems 1 minute to boot, etc. I am not one of those people. I don't like it when the sound lags. You=20 may claim that it doesn't bother you. But you can't claim that it=20 doesn't happen. > And to finish, I don't know how much you know about technical > decisions and design, but I know that Linus refused to accept OSS4 in > the kernel, I know that all major distributions decided to go with > PulseAudio, and I know that Intel, Nokia and Google are betting for > it. That doesn't mean ALSA is better. > So, no offense, but I trust more in those guys and the arguments I > have heard from them. And the consensus with them is to use > PulseAudio, and leave the mixing in user space. Then why don't they fix it? It's still crap after all this time.