Re: Jackd hell and other oddities
On Thu, 2007-04-12 at 11:32 +0100, Daniel James wrote:
> Hi Herman,
>
> > Like most other users, creators want their stuff to "just work".
> > I don't think those connecting a cheap USB MIDI keyboard to
> > their Linux box deserve to be considered pioneers or freaks.
>
> I completely agree, and we do support that kind of device in 64 Studio.
> However for the free software purist, this expectation cannot always be
> satisfied, because of the need for binary firmware to be uploaded to the
> device.
However, that is not part of the usecase I hinted above.
USB MIDI is generic. Soft synthesizers using jackd as audio transport
are already in Debian. Sequencers and digital audio workstations are
included, too.
However, fluidsynth/timidity and jack are infrastructure, yet they are
packaged and presented as applications. You don't think of X or DHCP
as applications, do you? I think Freedesktop.org is poised to play a
role here, as the sound subsystem _is_ part of what X calls a "display".
The configuration and status UI for the sound mixers/daemons/synths
ought to be found in System|Preferences and/or System|Administration,
and not tucked into Application|FunnyName.
> One of the things we realised early on, was that it is impossible to be
> all things to all people. So we try to make the best possible free
> software experience for creative people, but our distro would probably
> never be endorsed by RMS, or others like him.
Can you enumerate the most important non-free pieces of software,
firmware and drivers, so we can figure out what is missing to from
a completely Free music- and audiovisiual workstation?
--
Herman Robak
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