5 ms·

As a non-professional, I use a non-realtime JACK as the new ESD. I prefer that over the incomprehensible monster that PulseAudio is. My needs are simple: I wa

by aerique 13y ago

As a non-professional, I use a non-realtime JACK as the new ESD. I prefer that over the incomprehensible monster that PulseAudio is. My needs are simple: I want sound from my audio player (MOC), from my browser (f.e. Youtube), from games and they shouldn't interfere. So my audio player shouldn't have exclusive access to the device and prevent me from hearing Youtube at the same time. JACK does all this, is easy to configure and doesn't get in the way. edit: I should mention I run Debian Testing and prefer to stay away from big desktop environment like Gnome (do we see a trend here?).

yebyen 13y ago
Is there still debian testing, or are you calling 'wheezy' as testing? Just wondering I thought the way it was supposed to work was, when testing gets re-tagged as stable, there's no 'testing' for a brief period (month?) until the next planned distro release is named.
- subway 13y ago
  Wheezy was testing until this past Saturday, at which point Wheezy became stable and Jessie was cut as testing.
- emillon 13y ago
  This is not how it works. The next release name is announced approximately when the freeze starts. When a release happens, oldstable is archived, stable become the new oldstable, and the current state of testing becomes the new stable. For a moment of time (we're talking hours), testing and stable have the same set of packages. Britney, the software which migrates packages from unstable to testing, runs four times a day. During a freeze, it is configured to need "unblock exceptions" to migrate packages. When this is option is disabled, the following britney run will make the first difference between testing and stable.
- gcb0 13y ago
  wheezy is a version alias for v7. testing is testing. it points to the version that is on testing, be it 7-wheezy, or 8-whatever. the only exception to the rule is 'sid'. debian sid is always the bleeding edge, it never becomes a proper version. btw, i hate every versioning alias scheme that does not force the number to appear. such as debian, ubuntu, android... it's all just idiotic.
  - hythloday 13y ago
    Why is a number more useful than how Ubuntu or Android do things?
    - cookiecaper 13y ago
      Because it conveys relevant information. If you were on version 7 and the new version is version 13, a message is conveyed that there have been several major iterations since your last upgrade. Numerical versioning schemes (in general) make it simple to know if you're on a current version, and if not, how far off you are. Now consider trying to make similar determinations if you know you're running "Gingerbread" but the latest version is "Jelly Bean", or if you're on "Intrepid Ibex" and the latest version is "Raring Ringtail". It's even worse on Ubuntu, where they've chosen a reasonable, useful numerical versioning system (year.month), but then obscure it with stupid codenames. IMO it's also much more difficult to remember the codenames. I had to verify that Android 4.2 was still called Jelly Bean and though I knew the latest Ubuntu was 13.04, I had to look up its codename altogether. The fact that these projects continue to have underlying "developer use only"-type numerical versions only further emphasizes the utility of these. The codenames feel like a poorly-conceived marketing thing. I don't think most people have trouble remembering a coupled software package with a version number, like "Windows 7". I don't think they often say, "Oh crap, I know I had version 4 of something ... was it Android or Windows?"
      - dhimes 13y ago
        I can't upvote this enough. At least put the cutsie name in the goddamn uname -a result. Drives me bonkers having to look that shit up.
        discodave 13y ago
        lsb_release -a is what you want.
        dhimes 13y ago
octotoad 13y ago
Whenever I see this 'multiple apps using a sound card at once' issue mentioned, I try to recall what sort of ALSA 'voodoo' I've employed to make this work for me. Then I realise; absolutely nothing. I think the last time I ever had this problem was literally around 12 years ago, and it was caused by me fiddling with my alsa conf file. I haven't touched any ALSA related settings or done anything special in the last ~8 years, and I never have a problem with things like playing music and having a browser flash plugin using audio at the same time. Not saying it doesn't happen to other people. Just genuinely curious and baffled.
- stephen_g 13y ago
  Always confused me too. Alsa worked well, and then I remember Ubuntu introducing PulseAudio too early when it was immature, and it was horrible for a while, but six months later it had all been fixed and I never had any issues with PulseAudio again... What was that, like five or six years ago now?
- mgkimsal 13y ago
  happened for me as late as 2008 (last time I bothered checking) - GAIM/Pidgin were usually the culprit - once they'd played a sound, nothing else could until I killed it. Had issues on Ubuntu and Mandriva (and IIRC) fedora, over several versions, with both KDE and Gnome setups, on multiple laptops. Grew tired, switched to macbooks/osx.

by aerique 13y ago

yebyen 13y ago

Is there still debian testing, or are you calling 'wheezy' as testing? Just wondering I thought the way it was supposed to work was, when testing gets re-tagged as stable, there's no 'testing' for a brief period (month?) until the next planned distro release is named.

subway 13y ago
Wheezy was testing until this past Saturday, at which point Wheezy became stable and Jessie was cut as testing.
emillon 13y ago
This is not how it works. The next release name is announced approximately when the freeze starts. When a release happens, oldstable is archived, stable become the new oldstable, and the current state of testing becomes the new stable. For a moment of time (we're talking hours), testing and stable have the same set of packages. Britney, the software which migrates packages from unstable to testing, runs four times a day. During a freeze, it is configured to need "unblock exceptions" to migrate packages. When this is option is disabled, the following britney run will make the first difference between testing and stable.
gcb0 13y ago
wheezy is a version alias for v7. testing is testing. it points to the version that is on testing, be it 7-wheezy, or 8-whatever. the only exception to the rule is 'sid'. debian sid is always the bleeding edge, it never becomes a proper version. btw, i hate every versioning alias scheme that does not force the number to appear. such as debian, ubuntu, android... it's all just idiotic.
- hythloday 13y ago
  Why is a number more useful than how Ubuntu or Android do things?
  - cookiecaper 13y ago
    Because it conveys relevant information. If you were on version 7 and the new version is version 13, a message is conveyed that there have been several major iterations since your last upgrade. Numerical versioning schemes (in general) make it simple to know if you're on a current version, and if not, how far off you are. Now consider trying to make similar determinations if you know you're running "Gingerbread" but the latest version is "Jelly Bean", or if you're on "Intrepid Ibex" and the latest version is "Raring Ringtail". It's even worse on Ubuntu, where they've chosen a reasonable, useful numerical versioning system (year.month), but then obscure it with stupid codenames. IMO it's also much more difficult to remember the codenames. I had to verify that Android 4.2 was still called Jelly Bean and though I knew the latest Ubuntu was 13.04, I had to look up its codename altogether. The fact that these projects continue to have underlying "developer use only"-type numerical versions only further emphasizes the utility of these. The codenames feel like a poorly-conceived marketing thing. I don't think most people have trouble remembering a coupled software package with a version number, like "Windows 7". I don't think they often say, "Oh crap, I know I had version 4 of something ... was it Android or Windows?"
    - dhimes 13y ago
      I can't upvote this enough. At least put the cutsie name in the goddamn uname -a result. Drives me bonkers having to look that shit up.
      - discodave 13y ago
        lsb_release -a is what you want.
        dhimes 13y ago

octotoad 13y ago

Whenever I see this 'multiple apps using a sound card at once' issue mentioned, I try to recall what sort of ALSA 'voodoo' I've employed to make this work for me. Then I realise; absolutely nothing. I think the last time I ever had this problem was literally around 12 years ago, and it was caused by me fiddling with my alsa conf file. I haven't touched any ALSA related settings or done anything special in the last ~8 years, and I never have a problem with things like playing music and having a browser flash plugin using audio at the same time. Not saying it doesn't happen to other people. Just genuinely curious and baffled.

stephen_g 13y ago
Always confused me too. Alsa worked well, and then I remember Ubuntu introducing PulseAudio too early when it was immature, and it was horrible for a while, but six months later it had all been fixed and I never had any issues with PulseAudio again... What was that, like five or six years ago now?
mgkimsal 13y ago
happened for me as late as 2008 (last time I bothered checking) - GAIM/Pidgin were usually the culprit - once they'd played a sound, nothing else could until I killed it. Had issues on Ubuntu and Mandriva (and IIRC) fedora, over several versions, with both KDE and Gnome setups, on multiple laptops. Grew tired, switched to macbooks/osx.