Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
On Sat, 2008-06-21 at 14:36 -0400, David Boles wrote:
> Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
>> On Sun, 2008-06-22 at 02:40 +0930, Tim wrote:
>>
>> Totally agree with this. It's hard enough even figuring out what the
>> various mixer controls even control.
>
> It is a choice. If you, either of you, do not like it you should disable it.
> But I seriously doubt that Pulseaudio will 'just go away' because you
don't
> like it. ;-)
You misunderstand me. It's not that I dislike PA, I dislike *all* the
sound systems on Linux because I don't understand them and have never
seen a clear explanation of how they all fit together and what they do.
It seems to me (and it isn't the first time I've made the point) that
there's a gaping hole where a unified model should be. Maybe I'm just
stupid but I seem to see a lot of different models with overlapping
functionality and no clear relation between them. And every time someone
comes up with a new architecture (like PA) we have N+1 systems where
previously we had N.
In fact the mixer issue isn't even related to PA since I use Kmix.
I think that we are misunderstanding each other. :-)
What Is PulseAudio?
PulseAudio is a sound server for POSIX and Win32 systems. A sound server is
basically a proxy for your sound applications. It allows you to do advanced
operations on your sound data as it passes between your application and your
hardware. Things like transferring the audio to a different machine, changing
the sample format or channel count and mixing several sounds into one are
easily achieved using a sound server.
As for the sound applications? Each is the same thing with a different look
and feel. As are, for example, your favorite CD burning program and mine which
is different looking. All the GUI's do is make the command line entries for
you with 'point an click' stuff.
The problem with sound being, IMO, that some work 'here' and don't 'work
there'. And with all of that you have the 'buy me' codecs too. Which, it
appears, is the main cause of the 'sound stopped/does not' work problems.
I can feel the pain that some have with their installs. But (knock wood) I
have no had a Linux related problem since I trashed the ZIP Drive many years
ago. I get bumps and hiccups from time to time but nothing like I read here.
Which makes me wonder... hardware or PEBCAK? ;-)
--
David