5 ms·

for people as confused as I am, "Linux Audio" here refers to some sort of libre software group centered around audio applications on linux, not the actual audio

for people as confused as I am, "Linux Audio" here refers to some sort of libre software group centered around audio applications on linux, not the actual audio stack of linux systems.

justinjlynn 5y ago
thank you - neither the article title nor the article text make that terribly clear without specific prior knowledge of both.
mxmilkiib 5y ago
https://linuxaudio.org/ https://linuxaudio.org/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dheera 5y ago
FWIW the actual audio stack of linux systems is pretty broken too. Ever try to use some pretty standard bluetooth headsets with Linux? Never works. I always had to delete and re-pair for every conference call. And you have to go through this nonsense https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/config/install-bt https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/config/install... if you want your audio to sound better than a snake in a swimming pool, and nobody will ever tell you that. On iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, bluetooth headsets pretty much "just work". I'm a Linux fan and all my computers run Linux but Bluetooth audio IS broken.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Yeah my Jabra headset works flawlessly on Ubuntu.
  - dheera 5y ago
    Mine doesn't. I have a Jabra 75t elite, 20.04, and after trying to unpair and repair 3 times I have to run this goddamn script to keep the microphone volume up or it always auto-adjusts it to 0. https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/jabra-stop-changing-volume-goddamnit https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/jabra-stop-cha... Also, if you didn't do what my parent post's script did, you probably have shitty audio on your Jabra.
    - beprogrammed 5y ago
      I'm not very familiar with using Bluetooth with Linux, but looking at the script this appears to be a pulseaudio thing more than a Linux thing.
      - dheera 5y ago
        Yeah well ... I'm not an audio driver engineer, my Linux distro is the most popular (Ubuntu), came with PulseAudio, and I just want my audio to "just work" so I can have my damn meeting and work on the other Linux-based things I need to work on.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      I have the same pair, they work flawlessly on my Manjaro desktop/laptop. The audio sounds the same as it does on Windows/Android/Apple devices, at least on my machines.
- ericwooley 5y ago
  On Arch, my Bluetooth headphones are working great. MPOW-x3 and sony wh-1000xm4 My biggest gripe is that I can't use the microphone at the same time as the headphones, without switching to tin can mode.
  - jagger27 5y ago
    My XM4s used to pair fine on Arch too, but not anymore. I think the mic issue isn't specific to Linux but the headphones themselves.
  - foobarbecue 5y ago
    This is a limitation of Bluetooth, not Linux. It's crazy, but no decent 2-way Bluetooth protocols exist.
    - bashinator 5y ago
      What's the limitation? My wild-ass guess would be that rx and tx have to be on the same radio frequency, so you can't do full duplex without packet collisions.
      - monocasa 5y ago
        It's that the handset profile which allows two way audio but only with crappy phone style codecs is different from the audio profile that only has one direction for an audio stream but has decent audio quality.
        TylerE 5y ago
        What I don't get is that why the H/W companies don't just solve this by including a 2nd Bluetooth chip. Give up on running duplex, run high quality audio out to the headphones, and the mic as a separate device using whatever is best there.
        monocasa 5y ago
- christophilus 5y ago
  I haven’t had any problems with my two headsets and Fedora. Not sure what the difference is.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    Really depends on the hardware. My XPS 17 didn’t have fully functional sound (speakers, mic, headset) until kernel 5.11. And even then, if I restart, I lose everything except speakers. The solution is to shutdown and then boot up. An older latitude works perfectly.
- hpcjoe 5y ago
  I have to do this with windows as well. And Mac. So, this isn't necessarily different across platforms.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > On iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, bluetooth headsets pretty much "just work". I wouldn't go that far. On windows my headset shows up as two cryptically named devices, and using the wrong one or touching microphone input destroys the audio quality.
  - charrondev 5y ago
    I can second this. I have a couple different pairs of Bluetooth headsets with microphones that work flawlessly on android, iOS, and Mac. Windows 10 gets decent audio quality until you try to engage the microphone at which point it switches to a different audio driver with the quality of bad cellular phone call. It sees the headphones AND a generic “Bluetooth headset”. I’ve seen the same behaviour across Sony, Beats, and AirPods.
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      That's standard for Bluetooth. A2DP doesn't support the mic.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  FWIW, my headset works great out of the box, defaults to stereo, and the kde audio settings let's me pick headset to switch it to crappy audio, but mic mode for calls. No need to disconnect. NixOS 21.05; with last year's release, it did default to headset mode, and the audio profile switching was hidden behind an "advanced" button, so things are improving fast.
- bluetwo 5y ago
  Nothing Blue Tooth "just works"... maybe in another 100 years or so.
- pantalaimon 5y ago
  Shouldn't those Bluetooth issues be fixed by PulseAudio 15?
chrismorgan 5y ago
As a linguistic point, I note that title case is unhelpful in this instance: “Linux Audio Is Dead” here on HN, “Linux Audio is Dead” in the original article, both are ambiguous. Sentence case, which is quite rapidly supplanting title case in most English locales, would have made it clearer, though still subtle: “Linux Audio is dead”.
- vmception 5y ago
  wut
- michaelgrafl 5y ago
  Good point. My first language is German and I've never been able able to warm up to English title case. There's no such thing in German that I'm aware of.
anigbrowl 5y ago
Yes, if this has said 'Linux Audio Consortium' it would have been a lot clearer. The described behavior sounds appalling, but the author is also not doing himself any favors in how he explains it. I have never heard of NON before and beginning the story in media res while omitting any details of what the 3 antagonists asked him to do with his project makes the whole thing confusing. Until he got to talking about the LAD mailing list, which I am somewhat familiar with, I thought it was some sort of scam post.
jjice 5y ago
Thank you. Had a bit of confusion mixed with a mini heart attack there.
dang 5y ago
Submitted title was "Linux Audio is dead!". That's obviously linkbait, so a mod changed it, in keeping with the site guidelines. "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

for people as confused as I am, "Linux Audio" here refers to some sort of libre software group centered around audio applications on linux, not the actual audio stack of linux systems.

justinjlynn 5y ago

thank you - neither the article title nor the article text make that terribly clear without specific prior knowledge of both.

mxmilkiib 5y ago

https://linuxaudio.org/ https://linuxaudio.org/

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dheera 5y ago

FWIW the actual audio stack of linux systems is pretty broken too. Ever try to use some pretty standard bluetooth headsets with Linux? Never works. I always had to delete and re-pair for every conference call. And you have to go through this nonsense https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/config/install-bt https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/config/install... if you want your audio to sound better than a snake in a swimming pool, and nobody will ever tell you that. On iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, bluetooth headsets pretty much "just work". I'm a Linux fan and all my computers run Linux but Bluetooth audio IS broken.

chrisco255 5y ago
Yeah my Jabra headset works flawlessly on Ubuntu.
- dheera 5y ago
  Mine doesn't. I have a Jabra 75t elite, 20.04, and after trying to unpair and repair 3 times I have to run this goddamn script to keep the microphone volume up or it always auto-adjusts it to 0. https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/jabra-stop-changing-volume-goddamnit https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/jabra-stop-cha... Also, if you didn't do what my parent post's script did, you probably have shitty audio on your Jabra.
  - beprogrammed 5y ago
    I'm not very familiar with using Bluetooth with Linux, but looking at the script this appears to be a pulseaudio thing more than a Linux thing.
    - dheera 5y ago
      Yeah well ... I'm not an audio driver engineer, my Linux distro is the most popular (Ubuntu), came with PulseAudio, and I just want my audio to "just work" so I can have my damn meeting and work on the other Linux-based things I need to work on.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I have the same pair, they work flawlessly on my Manjaro desktop/laptop. The audio sounds the same as it does on Windows/Android/Apple devices, at least on my machines.
ericwooley 5y ago
On Arch, my Bluetooth headphones are working great. MPOW-x3 and sony wh-1000xm4 My biggest gripe is that I can't use the microphone at the same time as the headphones, without switching to tin can mode.
- jagger27 5y ago
  My XM4s used to pair fine on Arch too, but not anymore. I think the mic issue isn't specific to Linux but the headphones themselves.
- foobarbecue 5y ago
  This is a limitation of Bluetooth, not Linux. It's crazy, but no decent 2-way Bluetooth protocols exist.
  - bashinator 5y ago
    What's the limitation? My wild-ass guess would be that rx and tx have to be on the same radio frequency, so you can't do full duplex without packet collisions.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      It's that the handset profile which allows two way audio but only with crappy phone style codecs is different from the audio profile that only has one direction for an audio stream but has decent audio quality.
      - TylerE 5y ago
        What I don't get is that why the H/W companies don't just solve this by including a 2nd Bluetooth chip. Give up on running duplex, run high quality audio out to the headphones, and the mic as a separate device using whatever is best there.
        monocasa 5y ago
christophilus 5y ago
I haven’t had any problems with my two headsets and Fedora. Not sure what the difference is.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  Really depends on the hardware. My XPS 17 didn’t have fully functional sound (speakers, mic, headset) until kernel 5.11. And even then, if I restart, I lose everything except speakers. The solution is to shutdown and then boot up. An older latitude works perfectly.
hpcjoe 5y ago
I have to do this with windows as well. And Mac. So, this isn't necessarily different across platforms.
Dylan16807 5y ago
> On iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, bluetooth headsets pretty much "just work". I wouldn't go that far. On windows my headset shows up as two cryptically named devices, and using the wrong one or touching microphone input destroys the audio quality.
- charrondev 5y ago
  I can second this. I have a couple different pairs of Bluetooth headsets with microphones that work flawlessly on android, iOS, and Mac. Windows 10 gets decent audio quality until you try to engage the microphone at which point it switches to a different audio driver with the quality of bad cellular phone call. It sees the headphones AND a generic “Bluetooth headset”. I’ve seen the same behaviour across Sony, Beats, and AirPods.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    That's standard for Bluetooth. A2DP doesn't support the mic.
aidenn0 5y ago
FWIW, my headset works great out of the box, defaults to stereo, and the kde audio settings let's me pick headset to switch it to crappy audio, but mic mode for calls. No need to disconnect. NixOS 21.05; with last year's release, it did default to headset mode, and the audio profile switching was hidden behind an "advanced" button, so things are improving fast.
bluetwo 5y ago
Nothing Blue Tooth "just works"... maybe in another 100 years or so.
pantalaimon 5y ago
Shouldn't those Bluetooth issues be fixed by PulseAudio 15?

chrismorgan 5y ago

As a linguistic point, I note that title case is unhelpful in this instance: “Linux Audio Is Dead” here on HN, “Linux Audio is Dead” in the original article, both are ambiguous. Sentence case, which is quite rapidly supplanting title case in most English locales, would have made it clearer, though still subtle: “Linux Audio is dead”.

vmception 5y ago
wut
michaelgrafl 5y ago
Good point. My first language is German and I've never been able able to warm up to English title case. There's no such thing in German that I'm aware of.

anigbrowl 5y ago

Yes, if this has said 'Linux Audio Consortium' it would have been a lot clearer. The described behavior sounds appalling, but the author is also not doing himself any favors in how he explains it. I have never heard of NON before and beginning the story in media res while omitting any details of what the 3 antagonists asked him to do with his project makes the whole thing confusing. Until he got to talking about the LAD mailing list, which I am somewhat familiar with, I thought it was some sort of scam post.

jjice 5y ago

Thank you. Had a bit of confusion mixed with a mini heart attack there.

dang 5y ago

Submitted title was "Linux Audio is dead!". That's obviously linkbait, so a mod changed it, in keeping with the site guidelines. "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html