[PlanetCCRMA] Pulseaudio and qjackctl

[David Nielson]

> Pulse addresses a real problem: how to get regular desktop applications
> (including the desktop itself) to cooperate and access a single sound
> card in an orderly manner. ALSA won't do it and there are no other
> alternatives AFAIK. Jack is not the answer either, it was not designed
> to solve that problem. Pulse or something that fills that need is
> needed. If somebody wants to design yet another system (and there have
> been _many_ tries in the past) then they should go ahead and do it, but
> I would strongly suggest that they spend that time in helping with Pulse
> development instead.
This all seems silly to me; Jack, IMO, has the potential to solve the 
problems Pulse solves in a much more elegant way, plus the fact that it 
already has a large installed user-base and is highly developed. All it 
would take is this:

1. An emulation layer (which I think already exists) so that OSS / ALSA 
apps can be run through Jack without modification

2. A smart mixer application with a few sets of inputs (mono, stereo, 
surround, etc.) that intelligently figures out how to mix / mux / manage 
audio formats and direct them the best way for the end user's current 
speaker setup

3. Jackd becomes a "service" that's part of the default runlevel 3 and 5 
setup, and keeping it alive is managed by something only slightly 
smarter than qjackctl.

If I were a coder, I would go ahead and write this and submit it to 
Fedora along with a thorough list of grievances against PulseAudio, 
starting with "IT SUCKS."

David