Re: PulseAudio

[David Zeuthen <davidz redhat com>]

On Tue, 2007-02-27 at 15:01 -0500, xiphmont xiph org wrote:
> > My gods. Do not pass start. Do not collect $200. Hint, see
> >
> >  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=230006
> >
> > and come back when you understand the implications. Thanks.
> 
> You're asking the world to upgrade to benefit your pet project or be
                                                     ^^^

How nice.

> left behind.  The chances of that working out are not high.

No, we're just fixing past design mistakes to make the Linux desktop be
true multi-user (again). In some circles it's called progress; looking
forward and doing new exciting things. If such things happen to be
useful, hey, more power to the Linux desktop.

> > It's because I live in this century and don't use OSS myself.
> 
> And yet you feel justified to dismiss it.  I don't use the desktop
> much myself, so it must be unimportant.

I'm not dismissing OSS; there are, at least two mechanisms to support
it; let me repeat

 - LD_PRELOAD (widely used by LTSP)
 - emulation devices

Let me repeat again: both are ugly as hell because OSS is ugly as hell.

Whether we as a distro want to keep compat for these around in the
*default* install is a separate issue and up to the Fedora project at
large. I don't really care and I'm sure people who have a better idea of
our user base does. It could go in a compat-oss package for all I care.
For the record we have other compat* packages that you need to use
antiquated interfaces.

> Replace OSS with ALSA; the point still stands and perhaps you can
> identify more with it.

No, it's fine, apps use libasound and there's a plug-in for Pulse. 

> Say 'ESD' in a room full of Linux users five years ago, and the first
> thing anyone thought was 'Oh, it's that thing I have to kill so all my
> sounds apps will work again'.  If we repeat that mistake with PA, PA
> will also become reviled.

I don't understand this. OSS compat is possible through two mechanisms
already. Plus I have a lot of faith in the PA developers not to screw
up.

> > Of course, we wouldn't enable such things by default because we don't
> > have OSS apps in the default install. Perhaps enterprise distros that
> > care about old crap would.
> 
> Fine.  Do we ship any ALSA apps? I think we might.

No, it's fine, apps use libasound and there's a plug-in for Pulse. 

     David