ANNOUNCE: HEAD is open for development again

[Charles Samuels]

On Friday 13 August 2004 4:26 pm, Michael Nottebrock wrote:
> On Friday 13 August 2004 23:37, Charles Samuels wrote:
> > Let me try again:
> > Ideally 90% of our users (Linux) would get their audio mixed by the
> > kernel (so they'd get the lower cpu usage, less latency, and
> > compatibility with other apps).  The other 10% would get some stupid
> > soundserver to do the mixing.
>
> I'd much rather like 100% of the users getting something that won't
> effectively make non-Linux unsupported AND does not suck. I'm not sure 100%
> of the Linux users would like KDE suddenly being dependent on ALSA's
> api/abi-'stability' either.

Sorry Michael, if the kernel doesn't do the mixing, it's going to suck for 
100% of our users. This has been proven time and time again by all the mixers 
that have been attempted. I want something that works well for almost 
everyone, and if the other 10% want their system work as well as it does on 
Linux, then they can fix their kernels to support mixing.

We will provide a mixer, but it sucks far too much for something like this. 
Our users *hate* soundservers.  I *hate* soundservers. I want them to go 
away!  I particularly most want them to be unnecessary on the kernel I use, 
Linux.

I'm not saying it should depend on alsa's broken API, I'm saying /dev/dsp (or 
whatever that is provided) should provide mixing, by default, in the kernel. 
It should *just work*.

>
> Why is low latency important for mixing two system notifications sounds
> together anyway? Last time I looked even Windows did not use ASIO to play
> "ding.wav".

A program (particularly a game) that needs low latency shouldn't interfere 
with system notification sounds.

-Charles

-- 
Charles Samuels <charles at kde.org>
 Don't change horsemen in the middle of an apocalypse!