On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Ingo Müller wrote:
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.
And with Linux, you CAN deal with things deep inside the system-- it is all
open. On Vista, you cannot-- it is all proprietary, with legal bludgeoning
if you try to "reverse engineer" 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.
I agree that the documentation for Alsa could be much better. They have
decided, for good or bad, to concentrate on making new hardware work, rathr
than documentation. It would be nice if someone picked up the documentatin
ball, but that would also require help from the developers, who actually
know what is going on in the system.
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.
I have no idea why you say they would be a lot happier. Some would some
would wonder why the new soundcard hijacked their system. Wehn you plug in
a new soundcard, you have anothr soundcard on the alsa list which the sound
programs can choose from. Just choose your new card. Ie, the user DOES
have a way of altering the way the system works.
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
It is nothing FINALLY. documentation has to keep changing as the system
changes. Having documentation for last years version is probably worse than
useless. That is the problem-- the commitment to keep the docs up to date--
which probably stops many from writing documentation.
Howto for udev/hotplug scripts. The hotplug howto on the wiki is already
OK, but the others a pretty messy:
Ah did not realise that was there. OK, so now your naive user even has
something they can use to "get into the innards" something they sure do not
have for vista.
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...
ONce you get the idea surely you can "make it more complex"
Regards, Ingo
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--
William G. Unruh | Canadian Institute for| Tel: +1(604)822-3273
Physics&Astronomy | Advanced Research | Fax: +1(604)822-5324
UBC, Vancouver,BC | Program in Cosmology | unruh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Canada V6T 1Z1 | and Gravity | www.theory.physics.ubc.ca/
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