On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 09:51:08 -0500 hendrik@topoi.pooq.com wrote: > On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 05:40:12AM -0700, Scott wrote: > > > > Exactly. The first time I came across this I'd just naturally assumed > > something was *wrong* and spend several hours doing needless tweaking > > and researching only to find the volume was all the way down. I've > > never seen this in Windows. I've never seen this on a Radio or TV. > > It's unheard of, if you ask me. > > I'd *really* like to know what it is that makes audio such a black art > on Debian. hear hear! I suspect > -- that manufacturers don't provide us with specs or drivers and every > one is different (X has this problem, too, but configuring it mostly > works, whereas configuring audio seems hopeless if it doesn't just work > out of the box) (though so far I've completely failed to get X up on two > of my five machines -- at least once it works it stays working) this is surely an issue, but as you said X works pretty well, sound should be the same way too... > -- that there are too many user-interface conveniences (like KDE and > ilk) that get their oars in and confuse things. this, I think is definitely a big issue. Also, ISTM that many apps are still transitioning from OSS to ALSA and so you have to work out support for each, plus possibly software mixing, and the aforementioned "conveniences". There are too many parallel tracks that interfere with each other. This biggest challenge I"ve had is with the LANGUAGE. Having already learned a whole language just to navigate and maintain my linux systems, there is another whole language just in the sound arena. and way to many TLA's if you ask me. There are some things that should be set up as sane defaults from the beginning. For example, software mixing. ALSA should ship with a default .asoundrc (or whatever it is) set up for software mixing. I can't tell you how many problems I've seen solved by that little fix. If the sound card has hardware mixing, it surely doesn't hurt to put software mixing over the top of it. If the user has enough knowledge to know whether they have hardwaremixing or not, then they probably have enough to figure out how to set it up. The rest of us are stuck trying out .asoundrc's ripped off the web wondering if its really setup right or just happens to work... Another sane default would be to put PCM at say 10% or so. and master as well. True, alsaconf warns you to set the volumes, but it also says "Setting Default Volumes..." so there is an assumption by the user that sound is "ON". So the user runs alsamixer, see "Master Volume", turns it up a bit and wonders why it doesn't work... and depending on the screen size, may or maynot realise that there are other channels to mess with. Finally, after all that, every sound app has to be tweaked to use the alsa plugin if available, OR you have to research and figure out how to turn on OSS support for those non-alsa apps. If you start messing around with esound or others (arts?) then its a whole 'nother can 'o worms. these guys don't seem to play nice with apps that don't support them. So the user thinks they have a fully functional sound system running until they come across an app that doesn't use those particular daemons. Audacity comes to mind. I was using esound for a while, not really understanding what I was doing, bu thinking I had it all working. Drag out audacity for a project and it won't work. Have to kill esound first. ugh. that's not pretty. Since then, I've moved away from any of the sound daemons and now use straight alsa. I'm probably making too much of this. And I have to say, right now, my sound works great and I'm really happy with it, but I was definitely VERY frustrated for a while there. You're assessment of sound as a "black art" is right on the money. .02 </rant> etc A > > but I really really don't know. > > -- hendrik > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org >
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