Wunschkonzert, Ponyhof und Abenteuerspielplatz

in contrast to what you say the Apple audio stack (CoreAudio) is far less streamlined that it might appear on first sight. The different APIs that make up the Apple audio stack are far more redundant than you might think. Also, they are different in programming style, and you can list at least as many seperate components for different areas of audio with different API/naming styles as you just did for the Linux audio stack.

Listing two components of the Linux audio stack that are considered obsolete these days, and listing one item twice doesn't really help making your post unassailable.

Having said that, yes, our Linux audio stack is still chaotic, redundant, badly documented and incomplete. You are very welcome to help fixing this. But just doing a bit PR and sticking a single name on the sum of it all doesn't even touch the real problems we have with the audio APIs on Linux.

Free software development is in its very essence distributed. The fact that our APIs sometimes appear a bit higgledy-piggledy is probably just an inevitable consequence of this.

posted at: 20:02 | path: /projects | permanent link to this entry | 6 comments

Posted by testx at Tue Aug 12 20:31:04 2008
shhhh. didn't you get the memo about apple being awesome and how everything they touch instantly doesnt have bugs and works perfectly?

Posted by Ian at Tue Aug 12 22:59:36 2008
Maybe what we need is a clear overview of all the available libraries and technologies, showing clearly which ones are the current, recommended ones to use, and why. (And with examples in multiple programming languages.)

It's funny, you said "two components of the Linux audio stack that are considered obsolete these days" but I could only guess at which two you were referring to.

Maybe such a guide belongs in the GNOME wiki?

Posted by Scott James Remnant at Wed Aug 13 01:13:37 2008
While you're right that there's more to Apple than just Core Audio, and that many of the Linux bits might be deprecated ... that was not quite my point.

If anything, we need better documentation of the "this is the beaten path" kind. Programming anything in the Linux, fd.o and GNOME stack is like being put into a darkened room and having to find your own way out sometimes.

Obviously it would be better if we just had libaudio and libvideo, but at least developer.gnome.org/Audio would be a nice place to start.

It's also worth noting that I'm deliberately blogging slightly controversial things every Monday to stir up debate ;)

Posted by Mark at Wed Aug 13 02:48:53 2008
This is the second time you've gotten all upset about someone criticizing audio on Linux.

Do yourself a favour and take a step back, a deep breath, and just learn to not take it so personally.

Both people who have complained about audio on Linux that you've responded to had very valid complaints.

Posted by You at Wed Aug 13 06:03:37 2008
@Mark - I can't see how Lennart is taking that comment personally - he is just refuting the simplicity of the Apple audio system as hinted in the linked post.

I cannot see him taking offence, or reacting badly in this post. He even admitted there are flaws in the Linux audio stack.

Posted by Jaime at Thu Aug 14 21:52:01 2008
@Mark - When you say "This is the second time you've gotten all upset", who are you talking about?
From their posts, it's neither Lennart nor Scott, but I can't work out who else you could be talking about...

/confused/

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Tue, 12 Aug 2008

Scott,