http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/14682/
Another article on the confusing situation with Linux and sound:

http://www.matusiak.eu/numerodix/blog/index.php/2008/12/19/linux-audio-confusing-as-ever/

[701 votes] Solution #1: Unify sound drivers and the sound api


[-1 votes] Solution #2: OSS


[11 votes] Solution #3: OSS v4.1 (just released March 2009)


]]> en-us Wed, 22 Oct 2008 02:46:22 +0000 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:46:30 +0000 QAPoll module http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/14682/
a lot of the things you listed work for me.]]> Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:51:30 +0000 Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:53:58 +0000 Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:56:32 +0000
PulseAudio will probably fix most of the problems the users face, but developers still have far to many different APIs to work with.]]> Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:36:52 +0000
It's taken so long for Linux to have a half-elegant sound backbone, and we've still got a long way to go.

I think I agree with all your points -- a rare occurrence.]]> Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:43:40 +0000 Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:36:33 +0000
If, like a pro, you're using an outboard audio interface (USB or Firewire), things get more interesting. Some apps (like gstreamer) will recognise the card and pipe to it. Others (like Flash, Firefox) won't and will proudly blast the sound solely from the inbuilt sound card (and if unlucky, inbuilt laptop speakers).

+ 1. + a lot more if I could. Can't fault any of the points.]]> Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:34:36 +0000
I'm trying to convert friends and family to ubuntu but it's difficult when there's either no sound from youtube/firefox/flash or no sound from skype.

I've got a feeling it's things like this (and perhaps wifi connectivity) which can potentially put off newcomers to linux. If it were possible to make setting up sound very simple and consistent then it would be a massive boost for less tech users and also for the community.]]> Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:29:03 +0000
I searched for other sound-system-unifying ideas on brainstrom and suggested them as duplicates of this idea. The votes of every accepted duplicate-idea will get merged and this will push up the sound issue in the idea stack.

I started by adding ca. 10 other ideas. Please help by adding more related ideas that suggest to unify/streamline/improve the sound system on ubuntu. Thanks!]]> Sat, 06 Dec 2008 18:25:26 +0000 Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:39:06 +0000
There is no question there needs to be some unity in the audio space, but to my way of thinking the above suggestions is going in the wrong direction. It's like saying all the distributions should unite around KDE or Gnome or that KDE and Gnome should merge.

If you are doing professional audio then Jack is the preferred solution and there is reason for it to take complete managerial control of the audio interfaces. For the more casual users that want to use those same applications, having jack take complete control is more of an annoyance than a desirable feature.

Similarly with Pulse Audio there are use cases where it is desirable for it to take complete managerial control, but I think the majority are not using these feature, so having it take complete control is more of an annoyance than a desirable feature.

So the first thing is these sound servers should not by default take complete control of the audio interfaces, but there should be an easy way to enable/disable exclusive control.

The second thing... Why do all these sound servers implement features that alsa has, but completely independently of alsa? There are alsa capabilities to provide software mixing of audio streams, redirect audio streams, tie in audio FX, etc....

Where there is not a good GUI interface to do something create one that uses the existing alsa stuff as much as possible. Where in addition to not having a GUI there is a belief that the existing mechanism for doing something sucks, provide a better mechanism that ties in with alsa and can be used by other alsa software without blocking the ability to directly use other alsa features or work with the alsa guys to improve the mechanisms and interfaces.

Think of alsa bing like X.org and the sound servers bing like KDE and Gnome.

X.org, through Xrandr and other things, provides capabilities to resize the desktop, stretch it accross multiple monitors, move windows to other desktops or monitors, drag and drop, etc... Then it's up to the different desktop environments and window managers to make use of those features, so you can mix and match utilities and applications with minimal concern that they will work together and function as intended.

This is the type of relationship that should be building between the different sound servers and alsa.

Later, Seeker]]> Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:13:47 +0000 Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:53:05 +0000
At the moment, every application uses whatever it finds first. No driver problems: all cards are recognized. This is pure interface problem: there is no proper "default" sound card switching interface. One which is present doesn't work for half (most?) of applications (VLC, Flash, MPlayer, etc) where sound is actually relevant.

ALSA as interface is fine with me, but as was highlighted above ("ability to play more then one sound at once") it is also way too low level and often appears to be broken due to H/W limitations. ALSA has a library to workaround some of the problems, but I guess it is not always possible e.g. playback from multiple sources when H/W doesn't provide mixing.

Honestly, I'm all for unified sound interface, as I see it my only hope to ever make my all sound cards works in Linux nicely and switching between them painless. At moment it is even more broken that dual head support.]]> Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:24:27 +0000
Pulseaudio works OK on a standard system with one soundcard outputting over analog to upto 6 discrete speakers (might work with 8. haven't got 8 to test)

However: add in a second soundcard and all bets are off.
Attempt to route sound from one app to one output (e.g: in-game audio in/out to headphones/mic, music to SPDIF) and you might as well just ditch pulseaudio and fight with ALSA.

I'm often left with the feeling that more testing of non-standard systems is required with new ubuntu distros. I'm aware that this is a huge amount of work, and that the current state of affairs is amazing compared to what was offered in Warty, (...Hoary, Breezy, Dapper, Edgy...) but there is still a long way to go to have a system that is as customisable as manually editing alsa files, and as easy to use as gnome sound controller.]]> Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:26:18 +0000 Fri, 26 Dec 2008 07:45:12 +0000
Our competitors (namely OSX and Windows) have a single audio API which does everything.

On OSX, there is CoreAudio, which handles all MIDI, PCM audio and hardware mixing.

Since Windows 98SE, Microsoft introduced the DirectSound audio system, replacing Windows MME (MME however is still available)

Both of the systems offer low latency, a single set of drivers, and are complete.

On Linux now, we have ALSA and OSS. OSS (3.8) has seemingly been deprecated (OSS is on 4.1 now I believe) and we will be left with ALSA.
Then we have PulseAudio on top of that, adding functionality.
Then we have JACK on top of that, adding functionality.

To put it simply: to have many Sound Systems is a burden on the user (who has to switch systems to get their sound working), on the developer (spoilt for choice but seriously, one API?) and ultimately on Ubuntu/Linux itself.

I repeat, this desperately needs attention.]]> Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:53:53 +0000
What library people choose to use doesn't really concern me as long as they integrate properly with the sound system used.]]> Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:07:59 +0000
I have been trying to get Ubuntu Studio (Intrepid) to work, with varying degrees of failure. I have since moved to Ubuntu Studio (Jaunty Alpha 3), to see if there has been progress made.

It looks to me like Jaunty is actually going backwards from Intrepid!!

There needs to be a concentrated effort to bring proper, plug-n-play, modular sound to Linux. Unfortunately this will mean a lot of funding.

Hopefully Canonical can step up to the plate.

This will not take a few scattered bug fixes. This requires a dedicated team effort working full time! Please, for the love of god, fix sound in Linux.
]]> Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:50:06 +0000 Sun, 17 May 2009 01:39:28 +0000 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:38:52 +0000
Simple. Too many cooks in the kitchen. When you have no leadership and everyone has their equal say, including the developers who want to get something up and running that only they know how it works, this is what you get. A complete mess.

Plus they let politics get in the way instead of looking at it from a technical perspective only. Clearly OSS is superior, but because it use to be closed source, they refused to use it. Now that it's open source again, they still refuse to use it because it's been "deprecated" by the linux kernel.]]> Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:49:05 +0000