-------- Original Message --------
Subject: The Great Pulseaudio Mixer Debate: a modest (productive) proposal
From: Adam Williamson <awilliam(a)redhat.com>
To: fedora-devel-list(a)redhat.com
Date: 04/24/2009 01:03 PM
So, in the spirit of light rather than heat, here's my proposal,
again,
rescued from the depths of the flamefest, with some actual work
attached.
g-v-c is clearly intending to be an abstracted and simplified volume
control app / applet to cover the most common use cases in a friendly
way. Great.
It's clear, though, that some users have needs beyond this, which are
likely only going to be satisfied in a sensible way by access direct to
the ALSA mixer elements. Bastien and Lennart don't want some kind of
hack to expose these via g-v-c, and I'd tend to agree, that's clearly
not what it's designed for.
So my proposal is that we include by default an alternative GUI app
which allows direct access to the mixer channels.
Forget about a second app. I'm doing that now in F10. pavucontrol and
g-v-c. I don't want to keep having to use two. This is 2009. We have
quad-core 64-bit computers with 16 gigs of RAM and 2 terrabyte hard
drives. Lets put our computers to use instead of being lazy.
I understand we want to make Linux for the Desktop easy to use and all,
but why force simple GUI elements on everyone?
Is it too much to ask for a "advanced" checkbox that toggles the display
of extra widgets? You can bury this away in a Preferences menu, or heck,
even hidden only in gconf.
Making things easier to use is great -- but restricting UIs to only have
an "easy mode" 100% of the time isn't for everyone. Saying "no" to
calls
for change to the UI isn't helpful either. If g-v-c, or on a bigger
scope, Gnome, was being developed by a business the developers would
have been fired long ago for their arrogant ways.