Call for help: TiMidity++ aRts users
This is a call for help of all TiMidity++ users that use it with aRts mode
(KDE).
I have just uploaded a TiMidity++ release to unstable (2.13.2-3) that tries
to fix some troublesome aRts issues. It will go into testing in 10 days, if
everyhing is alright with the dependencies.
I am very strict about very high quality packaging, so I will not let
TiMidity++ with broken aRts support into the next stable, no matter what the
costs. And I cannot test the TiMidity++ aRts output.
What that means is that if I don't get any sort of reports to work with (of
either failure or success) in 10 days, I will have to remove aRts support
from TiMidity++ for sarge with a high priority upload. Should that happen,
I will re-enable aRts support in unstable after sarge releases, of course.
Thus, this call for help. So, please, if you like aRts and would like to
have it supported natively in sarge's TiMidity, test the new TiMidity++
packages in sid and report back.
Note that due to aRts long standing bugs, aRts auto-detection has been
removed from the TiMidity++ 2.13.2-3 package, so you have to tell TiMidity
to use aRts manually (give it the -OR switch, or configure it accordingly
in /etc/timidity/timidity.cfg).
I am especially interested in these tests:
1. Does it work at all if you tell it to use aRts (timidity -OR) ?
2. Does it work if you stop the playback for some time (above your
aRts automatic suspend timeout, tipically 60s) and start playing
again?
3. If you give it a few MIDI/MOD files, does it work when you tell it
to skip to the next file while still playing the previous file?
Even if you are using the GTK+ interface (timidity -ig -OR) ?
4. Does it work in ALSA synt mode at all with aRts output
(timidity -iA -OR, you will need to feed it MIDI files through the
ALSA sequencer using rosegarden, or pmidi, or something like that)?
If some aRts enthusiasts would be so kind as to email me offering their help
in testing further TiMidity aRts fixes, I am sure I could bring TiMidity aRts
support up to par with the native ALSA support (hint: aRts is severely
crippled on TiMidity upstream if you compare it to native ALSA, and nobody
upstream is working on it at all).
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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