[kde-linux] No aRts in KDE 4.4?

[John Layt]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 19:00, James White wrote:
> I have heard that aRts will be replaced in KDE 4.
>
> Can someone tell me what will be the replacement sound system in KDE?
>
> Personally, I use aRts by choice.  But I assume that we're getting
> something even more powerful.  Perhaps someone has improved on the original
> aRts code? Or will we be using ALSA now?
>
> I just cannot shake this fear however, that because of the lack of
> documentation on aRts and the subsequent deluge of unanswered complaints,
> we will now be given a lesser sound system - one that does not require that
> you "rt(n-e)fm" (read the non-existent manual) in order to make it run.
>
> Is there an expert out there who can give us (me) a heads-up about what is
> to come?  Is there a site with this info on it already?
>
> ps.  Are there REALLY problems with aRts?  I just haven't found any yet on
> my dozen or so KDE systems.  I run SKYPE and xmms simultaenously without
> loss of any notification sounds.  Running Quake is seamless - I suspect
> that I may lose KDE sound during gameplay, but how would I know... I'm
> PLAYING! :-)

Arts is principally a problem because the codebase is old, idiosyncratic, and 
the original author has long since moved on leaving no-one with sufficient 
expertise to properly maintain and extend it.  Furthermore, KDE is aimed at 
creating a desktop, not a soundserver, it's a waste of our time and effort to 
try do something that other people can and have done better.

So, in KDE4, arts will be deprecated and will not be replaced.  In it's place 
will be KDEMM, a thin api layer which defines a standard way for applications 
to access the sound system of the users/distros choice, i.e. there will be 
plugins for gstreamer, NMM, etc, the initial implementation will be for arts 
so you can keep that if you like.  This will save apps like amaroK from 
having to write a new backend for every sound server their users want to use.

For full details, read the aKademy talk by the KDEMM dude:
http://conference2005.kde.org/slides/multimedia-api--matthias-kretz.pdf
http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=Multimedia+API+Talk

In the KDE world, user choice is King, we don't take it away except for very 
good reasons, and even then we still let you do it if you really really want.

John.
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