On Sun, 21 Oct 2007, T.P. Reitzel wrote: > How long has ALSA been in existence now? The documentation for ALSA is > still incomplete and excessively complex for the average user trying to > adapt it to his needs. Here's a rather common scenario. A user just > purchases a new computer. For the sake of argument, the driver for the > audio chipset on his computer is immature so the user sticks an older > audio card into his computer. ALSA sees the on-board chipset as card0 > and the PCI card as card1. Now, how does this chap configure ALSA to > FULLY utilize the myriad number of applications using either ALSA or > OSS? Common scenarios have some users searching for YEARS to find the > proper solution to their problems of configuring ALSA. Say, this chap > downloads the speech recognition program, Julius/Julian (OSS only), and > wants to input audio from a microphone attached to card0. How does he > do it? Next, say this chap has VMware and needs to ouput audio (OSS > again) on card1 instead of the default card, 0. How does he do it? > Moving alone, now this chap wants to play a DVD in 5.1 surround sound on > card1 due to the immaturity of ALSA's driver for card0. How does he do > it? Now, the chap is listening to CD audio and wants to route the > playback to all 5 speakers instead of the two in front? How does he do > it? Generally, this chap wants to playback audio on card1 and record on > card0, and do it all in this lifetime. If the sarcasm is showing a bit > strongly, maybe ALSA's developers at SUSE should strongly consider that > this chap isn't an engineer. The aforementioned scenario is COMMON, and > I see nothing to address this scenario on the WIKI pages or ALSA's > website. Serious consideration of these issues need to addressed at SUSE > immediately as this time consuming process of configuring ALSA has gone > on far too long already. Yes, let the flames begin, but buckets of > water have already been thrown by myself and numerous other users to > more than quench the fire of emotion. Personally, I like ALSA, but > hiding its complexity for the average user should be a priority. The > time for talk is over and has been so for a long time. The system configuration complexity should be handled inside distribution, not subsystem itself (we have already clear soundcard/device naming, but it's true that users must learn about it). So ask distributions to add such possibility to their device manager / configuration utilities (like yast for SUSE). Also, we added recently a function to alsa library to obtain a list of device names. So ask application developers to integrate this function to their application, so users can easy choose the right playback / record device. Jaroslav ----- Jaroslav Kysela <perex@xxxxxxxx> Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer ALSA Project ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
