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> In general, I have found that things which are difficult on Linux are so because the problem is difficult [...]. Hard disagree. Audio mixing is not difficult

> In general, I have found that things which are difficult on Linux are so because the problem is difficult [...]. Hard disagree. Audio mixing is not difficult[1]. The Linux kernel guys were right - it does not belong in the kernel. The userspace story however, has been a complete shitshow for decades. I think Pipewire mostly fixed that? Not sure, sometimes I still have to log out and back in to fix audio. The funniest part? It's been working in the BSDs all along. I recommend reading the source of sndiod[1]. [1]: <https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/sndiod/ https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/sndiod/> What's even worse? Probably systemd. I try not to hold a strong opinion - I tolerate it, the way I tolerate traffic when taking a walk. The technical issue however is several orders of magnitude simpler - again, the BSDs come to mind, but you can also write a complete PID1 program in about 20 lines of straightforward C[2]. I don't mind the commands being unfamiliar (they're already all different in almost every OS family); it's that the entire package is dreadfully large in scope, opaque, and I find it more difficult to interact with than anything else in this landscape. [2]: <https://ewontfix.com/14/ https://ewontfix.com/14/>

gr_norm 2y ago
There are indeed always exceptions to generalizations, as you've pointed out. Though pulseaudio always trudged along fine for me (not like audio had always worked for me on other systems), and pipewire works perfectly.
ddtaylor 2y ago
I agree PulseAudio, Pipewire, ALSA, etc. are a pretty big shit show in Linux and have been for some time. From what I understand there are a few stories there with various levels of screw ups, but at no point was this situation the goal, and we are moving closer to an easy to use system that "just works" for these needs. However, it's worth noting that audio experts doing high grade mixing in production are using these systems quite effectively and have been for a long time. It's similar to Blender in that regard with it always having the "guts" of doing great things, but only the experts that knew the correct spells to cast were able to use it effectively before the UI/UX was improved with 2.x and later I believe.
- rollcat 2y ago
  I work in live media production. I would never consider doing any mixing on Linux - just like I wouldn't consider putting Docker containers on a Mac to serve live HTTP traffic.

gr_norm 2y ago

There are indeed always exceptions to generalizations, as you've pointed out. Though pulseaudio always trudged along fine for me (not like audio had always worked for me on other systems), and pipewire works perfectly.

ddtaylor 2y ago

I agree PulseAudio, Pipewire, ALSA, etc. are a pretty big shit show in Linux and have been for some time. From what I understand there are a few stories there with various levels of screw ups, but at no point was this situation the goal, and we are moving closer to an easy to use system that "just works" for these needs. However, it's worth noting that audio experts doing high grade mixing in production are using these systems quite effectively and have been for a long time. It's similar to Blender in that regard with it always having the "guts" of doing great things, but only the experts that knew the correct spells to cast were able to use it effectively before the UI/UX was improved with 2.x and later I believe.

rollcat 2y ago
I work in live media production. I would never consider doing any mixing on Linux - just like I wouldn't consider putting Docker containers on a Mac to serve live HTTP traffic.