Re: Debian policy on multimedia ?

[Junichi Uekawa <dancer@netfort.gr.jp>]

Hi,

> > Considering MIDI, a pre-requirement of MIDI keyboard with ALSA
> > configured is more than what most casual users would want. Most people
> > would probably have a requirement of a playback of MIDI instrument,
> > and probably a leap to a virtual MIDI keyboard before jumping into
> > buying a full MIDI I/O setup.
> 
> Practically every keyboard manufactured since 198? has a MIDI port - buying a 
> full MIDI I/O set-up involves buying a connector cable in most cases. At 
> present most gameport type connections require adding snd-seq-midi 
> to /etc/modules, most cards use port 0x330 for this. I am pre-supposing the 
> use of ALSA here, however the only reasons for not auto-configuring MIDI 
> would be that it conflicts with other possible set-ups. I think many more 
> casual users would use MIDI if it didn't seem awkward to set up.

I usually don't have a MIDI keyboard around me, and I'm using software synthesizers.
I have an impression that the software synthesizing defaults are:

most applications -- timidity

KDE applications (noteedit/kguitar) -- tse

My thinking in the MIDI area was that it would be nice if Debian could
provide an infrastructure so that default software synthesizer can be
configured.

Also, MIDI virtual keyboard input is nontrivial. I don't really know
of how people actually do it.

and /me notices that there is vkeybd package, however it's not obvious how I
can set it up so that it can make sound through timidity/zynaddsubfx/hydrogen.



regards,
	junichi
-- 
dancer@{debian.org,netfort.gr.jp}   Debian Project