Bill Unruh schrieb: > On Thu, 22 Mar 2007, Ingo Müller wrote: > >> Quote: "Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology and mass movement >> that seeks to place the nation (defined in exclusive biological, >> cultural, and historical terms) above all other loyalties." (Enlglish >> Wikipedia) >> >> Please explain how Windows Vista is fascist in any sort. > > An operating system which apparently with no input from the user and with > no way of changing it by the user, decides on what the proper sound card is > for all programs to use, I call fascist-- ie, what is best for the > "gornemnt"( operating system writer) is imposed on the user. > > I do not believe that there is really no possibility to influence Windows Vistas behaviour with usb sound cards, in fact, I'm pretty sure that there is such a possibility. The thing is that probably, you have to "deal with things deep inside of the system" in order to do it. >> >> >> If "narrow-minded", "limited", "restricted" or "intolerant" is what you > > Those are all terms used pejoratively. Your definition from Wikipedia uses > none of those terms. Those are your gloss on what you see as the > connotations of fascism. > Good point. Still... you know Godwins Law, right? > >> think about Windows Vista, please explain how it is not "narrow-minded", >> "limited", "restricted" or "intolerant" to expect from a simple user to >> learn to program scripts and deal with things deep inside of the system >> just in order to choose his default sound card. > > If the user is unwilling or unable to select things, then it clearly does > not matter, they are stuck with what the operating system gives them. The > question is how it deals with people who are unwilling and unable to accept > those defaults and have the ability to change them. I don't agree that it does not matter, if people are unable to select things. This is the main thing I'm talking about! At the moment, a "user" doesn't have any possibility at all to influence ALSAs behaviour, not even the the slightest bit. Even for more experienced users who are no experts (like me), it's still very difficult to find a good solution how to do it. The problem for those people is, that ALSAs documentation is so poor. If you didn't deal with udev/hotplug before, you don't even have an idea where to start looking for a solution. > If you are arguing that Linux could make setting up hotplug scripts easier, > you have a good argument. If you are arguing that since not everyone can do > it, no mechanism to change should be made available, then I would disagree. > > Linux has a mechanism, the hotplug scripts to alter the way a system > operates when something is plugged into a usb port. The OP did not want to > use that mechanism for some reason. Instead he felt that what he found most > convenient today should be the way in which the operating system should > operate by default, not realising that his desires today might not be the > same as his desires tomorrow , and might not be the same as other's desires > even today. I agree, that there has to be a way to modify the operating systems behaviour when new sound cards are plugged in and I think that udev/hotplug scripts are one way to do it. The problem for unexperienced users is, as said before, that they are most likely unable to write these scripts. Why not make ALSA make a newly plugged in usb sound card the default sound card, when nothing else is specified. Maybe this can be done by an udev/hotplug script provided with ALSA. Experienced users would still have the possibility to do whatever they want, but those who are just not able to do that kind of stuff would be a lot happier with their system. This default behaviour I'm proposing, and ALSAs current default behaviour (doing nothing) both decide for the user what to do. But mine is much more intuitive and I'm sure that that's the way more people want it to be (like the OP), because using the new sound card is the main reason they plugged them in in the first place. > So, rewriting alsa so that it constantly reread its config file to check to > see if new hardware had been put in and to change which harware was used on > the fly is one idea, but I think a bad one. It is a way of bugs, of > complicating alsa, which always introduces bugs. The whole Unix/Linux > philosophy is to make small things so simple things and to have complicated > things done by linking together simple things. There is a mechanism for > altering the behaviour of the system on pluggin things into a bus-- the > hotplug mechanism. To overload alsa in order to do something which is far > better carried out by that mechanism is a bad idea. > > To ask for easier ways of setting up hotplug scripts is certainly a valid > thing to ask for. So the usb soundcard manufacturers writing hotplug > scripts for their soundcard would also be a good idea, or even for distro > writers including a gui mechanism for doing so. > So, what I would suggest is two things: The more important one is to FINALLY improve ALSAs documentation, starting with providing a good Howto for udev/hotplug scripts. The hotplug howto on the wiki is already OK, but the others a pretty messy: http://alsa.opensrc.org/Udev http://alsa.opensrc.org/Hotplugging_USB_audio_devices_(Howto) http://alsa.opensrc.org/MultipleCards http://alsa.opensrc.org/MultipleUSBAudioDevices The second thing is the script (or anything with that functionality) mentioned above, that makes hotplugged devices the default if nothing else is specified. Maybe this script could even be a bit more complex and provide the possibility to define several asoundrc files that are loaded if certain things happen. Like this, the wheel would not have to be invented again and again... Regards, Ingo ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
