Re: Debian policy on multimedia ?
On Thursday 16 February 2006 22:49, Junichi Uekawa was like:
> > > Audio on the other hand seems to have mostly settled for ALSA and jack.
> > > (I'm not sure if portaudio is gone?)
Things like portaudio and MIDIshare never really arrived. (OK, I'm
exaggerating slightly - Doesn't Audacity use portaudio?)
> > Yes. And I would suggest that the audio servers become deprecated.
> > They should get compability solutions, "proxies" if you like, so that
> > programs that depend on them will continue to work. But the _real_
> > back-ends should be ALSA and Jack. Any objections?
>
> The proxies (arts, esound etc.) are innocent-looking, but actually harmful
> in that they currently
>
> 1. add much latency in the scene
>
> 2. occupy ALSA/OSS devices exclusively so that other apps cannot use.
>
> I don't think I've heard of any app that supports arts/esd etc. which
> doesn't support saner sound protocols; so 'letting them die their
> peaceful death' is a feasible option.
The problems with Artsd blocking the sound server have become a lot less since
sarge. I think because Artsd now recognises ALSA, maybe dbus helps this too,
sorry I'm a little fuzzy on details.
I think if we are making policy here, then setting ALSA as the basic sound
system with JACK used in all cases where applications need to be able to
communicate about audio signals in realtime, is the only sensible option.
This will force everything else to be compatible, which is a Good Thing (TM).
There are very few 'professional' quality audio applications that don't use
these protocols. A/DeMuDi has enforced ALSA/JACK compatibility for two or
three years now.
The one thing that would be magic would be to get video apps to send and
receive JACK transport signals. We would score major points if it were
possible to sync totem up to Ardour or Rosegarden, particularly if it were
possible to export the combined output to an ogg-theora file (or whatever).
I also think we should start considering 3d graphics support as a serious
issue. I know this is largely driver-dependent. 3d graphics have some
'serious' applications in the multimedia realm. If we are looking to the
future this must not be relegated to 'eye-candy for gamers' - it is more
important than that IMO.
I guess I'll have to give up on ever seeing OpenMusic in Debian, however.
--
cheers,
tim hall
http://glastonburymusic.org.uk/tim
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