7 ms·

Sigh. Once upon a time, sound cards were files in the /dev tree. To play sound, you wrote pcm data to the file representing a sink. To record, you read pcm dat

Sigh. Once upon a time, sound cards were files in the /dev tree. To play sound, you wrote pcm data to the file representing a sink. To record, you read pcm data from a file representing a source. Things were better then. I'm sure there are people with use cases that have required the four (and counting!) solutions crufted on since then, but I've never been one of them, and it irks me that the interfaces get more and more complex and brittle with each iteration.

ro_sharp 9y ago
I think the use cases you're describing are quite distinct from a "Linux on the desktop" user. The audio experience for this kind of user (myself included) has improved dramatically in the past few years.
- bandrami 9y ago
  I'm a desktop Linux user; I preferred the old way. I do get that most people like multiplexing (I don't; I want exactly one sound source at a given time), and I'll grant that has improved. I banged my head against my desk for a couple of days when Slackware switched to Pulse with 14.2, allegedly because it was needed for bluetooth. I still have difficulty believing that people actually use bluetooth for audio, but apparently some people love it.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    > I don't; I want exactly one sound source at a given time Really? So you want all app feedback to cease if you're playing music? No IM or new email notifications? That just seems like a pain to me.
    - bandrami 9y ago
      I hate app feedback and notification sounds. I hate notifications in general; I prefer to poll for information I need on my schedule. This is also why I hate desktop environments and use a simple full screen window manager. One task at a time. Hell, lately I don't even bring up X every day if I don't need to. Tl;dr: I'm old.
      - rhaps0dy 9y ago
        Or wise, and you take control of your own attention. Multiplexing can be handy if you like gaming, and having music from another application at the same time. Also sometimes it's useful to have a reference manual in one side of the screen and your text editor in the other, or a PDF viewer on one side and a LaTeX editor in the other.
        zeveb 9y ago
        I'm with you regarding the value of multiplexing. I don't use it much, but it was really annoying back in the day when one program would block another program's sound. > Also sometimes it's useful to have a reference manual in one side of the screen and your text editor in the other, or a PDF viewer on one side and a LaTeX editor in the other. True. An emacs which supported the framebuffer could do this (but GNU emacs currently only supports vt100, X, macOS & Windows, IIRC).
        bandrami 9y ago
        There are some framebuffer[1] consoles[2] that work really well when you do need to mux outside of X. [1] https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/kmscon/ https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/kmscon/ [2] https://code.google.com/archive/p/fbterm/ https://code.google.com/archive/p/fbterm/
      - dvtv75 9y ago
        There's nothing quite as jarring as having a pleasant piece of music turned up, only to have some off-key and out-of-time bell ding because an email arrived. Want to let me know there's a new email? Put a little envelope on the task bar so I can see it. Don't invade my music!
  - adambyrtek 9y ago
    > I still have difficulty believing that people actually use bluetooth for audio So you don't believe that somebody would like to be able to use wireless headphones?
    - zeveb 9y ago
      I don't: wireless headphones seem strictly worse in every way than wired. They require batteries and charging; they introduce lag; they are expensive; they are easier to lose; they don't have a convenient cable to hang on to. I am completely and totally flabbergasted by their popularity. It's as though millions of people were turning their noses up at fine, free homemade French food and paying for McDonald's instead.
      - hamax 9y ago
        > seem strictly worse in every way than wired. The same as wifi, right? Strictly worse in every way. Except for the not needing wires way.
        zeveb 9y ago
        As a matter of fact, my desktop & my laptop are both wired, and I hate how flaky WiFi is on my phone & tablet. Just moving to different rooms in my (small house) does horrible things to my network connexion speed — but Ethernet keeps on chugging along.
        bandrami 9y ago
        Wifi has encryption. Bluetooth means I'm broadcasting my audio stream to anybody who feels like snooping on me.
        digi_owl 9y ago
        Not quite. Bluetooth was originally encrypted, but gained the option of non-encrypted channels with version 1.1. On top of that Bluetooth use frequency hopping. Until recently there was no real hardware for scanning/sniffing Bluetooth traffic, at least not anything easily available compared to a wifi card in promiscuous mode.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    > allegedly because it was needed for bluetooth The bluetooth stack dropped support for ALSA with Bluez 5.0. About a year ago, dev started on a "bluez-alsa" or BlueALSA package the re-integrates an ALSA backend. I've used it briefly; it seems to work as advertised. I think that Bluez 5.0 came out about the time that Slackware 14.0 did, so it makes some sense that versions before 14.2 would've provided Bluez 4.x for the bluetooth stack.
- loeg 9y ago
  Well, it improved years ago (like, ten!) and I haven't had to worry about it in recent years. I still remember buying a hardware sound card (soundblaster emu10k) to enable ALSA to mix multiple sources (game audio + teamspeak or whatever voice chat people used back then) back in the early 2000s.
ashark 9y ago
I was entirely happy with alsa and still don't know of any use-case I have that's better served by the more fragile, more resource-hungry PulseAudio. I assume it's useful to someone.
- lathiat 9y ago
  Spoken confidently like someone that never tried to play sound in two applications at once.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
    dmix works just fine for "normal users" and has since the first time I used it (sometime in 2005 or so)
    - Aissen 9y ago
      How did you ensure one app wasn't much louder than the other ?
      - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
        I haven't had a problem with that at all, so I'm not sure :)
      - bandrami 9y ago
        I'm trying to think of a software audio source that doesn't have its own volume control and I'm failing.
        loeg 9y ago
        Chrome, for example. Remember http://packet.city/ http://packet.city/ from a few days ago? All Chrome supports is mute or unmute.
        jancsika 9y ago
digi_owl 9y ago
A massive sad part of all this is that so much of what is going on in Linux DE land right now seems to be driven by a pipe dream called multiseat. Or effectively using software to turn a Linux desktop install into a desktop mainframe. This by attaching a bunch of peripherals and use software to assign them to groups that effectively form the equivalent of a graphical terminal. All this supposedly in the hopes of introducing affordable computing to schools in the developing world. But said schools have already tested and discarded this idea, so why the DEs keep pushing it is a mystery.
- gmueckl 9y ago
  Serious question: I remember claims that poorer countries basically switched to smartphones instead of PCs and phones are supposed surprisingly ubiquitous there. Can anybody confirm that? Seats never made much sense to me and if the smartphone story has any truth to it, then I do not see any valid use case for that idea these days.
  - bandrami 9y ago
    It's certainly true in urban India (and becoming more true in rural India). And this has the added bonus of bringing people into the banking system because you can store, send, and withdraw cash from your mobile account (this started in sub-saharan Africa but is becoming more of a thing in rural India too).
esaym 9y ago
And what happened when two processes wrote to that file? And what if they where each in a different sample rate? ....
- gmueckl 9y ago
  Well, sound mixing and resampling are a thing. Other operating systems do that where it belongs: in the kernel. OSS gets it right, for example.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

ro_sharp 9y ago

I think the use cases you're describing are quite distinct from a "Linux on the desktop" user. The audio experience for this kind of user (myself included) has improved dramatically in the past few years.

bandrami 9y ago
I'm a desktop Linux user; I preferred the old way. I do get that most people like multiplexing (I don't; I want exactly one sound source at a given time), and I'll grant that has improved. I banged my head against my desk for a couple of days when Slackware switched to Pulse with 14.2, allegedly because it was needed for bluetooth. I still have difficulty believing that people actually use bluetooth for audio, but apparently some people love it.
- kbenson 9y ago
  > I don't; I want exactly one sound source at a given time Really? So you want all app feedback to cease if you're playing music? No IM or new email notifications? That just seems like a pain to me.
  - bandrami 9y ago
    I hate app feedback and notification sounds. I hate notifications in general; I prefer to poll for information I need on my schedule. This is also why I hate desktop environments and use a simple full screen window manager. One task at a time. Hell, lately I don't even bring up X every day if I don't need to. Tl;dr: I'm old.
    - rhaps0dy 9y ago
      Or wise, and you take control of your own attention. Multiplexing can be handy if you like gaming, and having music from another application at the same time. Also sometimes it's useful to have a reference manual in one side of the screen and your text editor in the other, or a PDF viewer on one side and a LaTeX editor in the other.
      - zeveb 9y ago
        I'm with you regarding the value of multiplexing. I don't use it much, but it was really annoying back in the day when one program would block another program's sound. > Also sometimes it's useful to have a reference manual in one side of the screen and your text editor in the other, or a PDF viewer on one side and a LaTeX editor in the other. True. An emacs which supported the framebuffer could do this (but GNU emacs currently only supports vt100, X, macOS & Windows, IIRC).
        bandrami 9y ago
        There are some framebuffer[1] consoles[2] that work really well when you do need to mux outside of X. [1] https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/kmscon/ https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/kmscon/ [2] https://code.google.com/archive/p/fbterm/ https://code.google.com/archive/p/fbterm/
    - dvtv75 9y ago
      There's nothing quite as jarring as having a pleasant piece of music turned up, only to have some off-key and out-of-time bell ding because an email arrived. Want to let me know there's a new email? Put a little envelope on the task bar so I can see it. Don't invade my music!
- adambyrtek 9y ago
  > I still have difficulty believing that people actually use bluetooth for audio So you don't believe that somebody would like to be able to use wireless headphones?
  - zeveb 9y ago
    I don't: wireless headphones seem strictly worse in every way than wired. They require batteries and charging; they introduce lag; they are expensive; they are easier to lose; they don't have a convenient cable to hang on to. I am completely and totally flabbergasted by their popularity. It's as though millions of people were turning their noses up at fine, free homemade French food and paying for McDonald's instead.
    - hamax 9y ago
      > seem strictly worse in every way than wired. The same as wifi, right? Strictly worse in every way. Except for the not needing wires way.
      - zeveb 9y ago
        As a matter of fact, my desktop & my laptop are both wired, and I hate how flaky WiFi is on my phone & tablet. Just moving to different rooms in my (small house) does horrible things to my network connexion speed — but Ethernet keeps on chugging along.
      - bandrami 9y ago
        Wifi has encryption. Bluetooth means I'm broadcasting my audio stream to anybody who feels like snooping on me.
        digi_owl 9y ago
        Not quite. Bluetooth was originally encrypted, but gained the option of non-encrypted channels with version 1.1. On top of that Bluetooth use frequency hopping. Until recently there was no real hardware for scanning/sniffing Bluetooth traffic, at least not anything easily available compared to a wifi card in promiscuous mode.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  > allegedly because it was needed for bluetooth The bluetooth stack dropped support for ALSA with Bluez 5.0. About a year ago, dev started on a "bluez-alsa" or BlueALSA package the re-integrates an ALSA backend. I've used it briefly; it seems to work as advertised. I think that Bluez 5.0 came out about the time that Slackware 14.0 did, so it makes some sense that versions before 14.2 would've provided Bluez 4.x for the bluetooth stack.
loeg 9y ago
Well, it improved years ago (like, ten!) and I haven't had to worry about it in recent years. I still remember buying a hardware sound card (soundblaster emu10k) to enable ALSA to mix multiple sources (game audio + teamspeak or whatever voice chat people used back then) back in the early 2000s.

ashark 9y ago

I was entirely happy with alsa and still don't know of any use-case I have that's better served by the more fragile, more resource-hungry PulseAudio. I assume it's useful to someone.

lathiat 9y ago
Spoken confidently like someone that never tried to play sound in two applications at once.
- fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
  dmix works just fine for "normal users" and has since the first time I used it (sometime in 2005 or so)
  - Aissen 9y ago
    How did you ensure one app wasn't much louder than the other ?
    - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
      I haven't had a problem with that at all, so I'm not sure :)
    - bandrami 9y ago
      I'm trying to think of a software audio source that doesn't have its own volume control and I'm failing.
      - loeg 9y ago
        Chrome, for example. Remember http://packet.city/ http://packet.city/ from a few days ago? All Chrome supports is mute or unmute.
        jancsika 9y ago

digi_owl 9y ago

A massive sad part of all this is that so much of what is going on in Linux DE land right now seems to be driven by a pipe dream called multiseat. Or effectively using software to turn a Linux desktop install into a desktop mainframe. This by attaching a bunch of peripherals and use software to assign them to groups that effectively form the equivalent of a graphical terminal. All this supposedly in the hopes of introducing affordable computing to schools in the developing world. But said schools have already tested and discarded this idea, so why the DEs keep pushing it is a mystery.

gmueckl 9y ago
Serious question: I remember claims that poorer countries basically switched to smartphones instead of PCs and phones are supposed surprisingly ubiquitous there. Can anybody confirm that? Seats never made much sense to me and if the smartphone story has any truth to it, then I do not see any valid use case for that idea these days.
- bandrami 9y ago
  It's certainly true in urban India (and becoming more true in rural India). And this has the added bonus of bringing people into the banking system because you can store, send, and withdraw cash from your mobile account (this started in sub-saharan Africa but is becoming more of a thing in rural India too).

esaym 9y ago

And what happened when two processes wrote to that file? And what if they where each in a different sample rate? ....

gmueckl 9y ago
Well, sound mixing and resampling are a thing. Other operating systems do that where it belongs: in the kernel. OSS gets it right, for example.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]