Problems with kdemultimedia package

[Christopher S Horler]

I've not been following this list in too much detail for a while now. 
This email brings to light some concerning issues.

Arts isn't maintained anymore, presumably there is some plan of action -
changing sound server (to a maintained one)?

Info would be appreciated,

Later,

Chris

On Sat, 2002-10-19 at 05:00, Charles Samuels wrote:
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> Friday 18 October 2002 01:11 pm, skrev Pavel Troller:
> > Hi!
> >   Sorry for crossposting this mail, but I'm trying to get at least SOME
> > responses...
> >   I have a feeling that kdemultimedia (and its "branch" in kdeaddons),
> > one of the most popular and useful packages in KDE, are somewhat
> > orphaned... It seems that there are many bugs which nobody tries to fix
> > :-(. I did my best to help at least to track them down (by sending a
> > backtraces, for which I've spent many hours of compiling and preparing to
> > generate them). Sorry that I cannot do a real fixes but simply at my 40+'s
> > it's not easy to learn C++ to the level which is required for it :-(.
> 
> Well, I try to fix crashes, but the age of my computer is... painfully 
> apparent.  gdb here is nearly unusable (speedwise).  I appreciate your 
> efforts, but often enough merely a backtrace is not enough.
> 
> And yes you can expect more patches to noatun before the release.
> 
> >   So, the most annoying ones:
> >   1) From upgrading to qt-3.1b2, noatun crashes on exit. Backtrace sent
> >      to kde-devel on Oct, 9. Still crashes.
> Must be a Qt bug.  You'd be able to more easily get my attention by using 
> bugs.k.o.
> 
> >   3) For somebody (not me) noatun causes artsd to crash because of a
> >      "Preserve frequencies" feature in pitchablespeed. So somebody removed
> >      the feature instead of a real fix. And it's soooooooo nifty feature!
> >      The sound is not perfect in comparison with the proffessional
> >      harmonizer, but simply - it's nice to have it. Now I have one sticky
> >      tag to keep it, because it works here.
> 
> I commited that, arts has no maintainer.  The bitrot has begun.
> 
> And a feature that crashes my machine is one that will be not shipped; because 
> I will inevitably be held to blame for if it fails for someone else, and you 
> try to tell a user "yeah, it crashes here too, see how competent we are?" ...
> 
> >   And some less but also annoying ones:
> >   4) In the noatun's equalizer, the 14kHz slider doesn't have any effect
> >      (don't blame my ears - yes, I'm 40+ but I still CAN hear above 14 kHz
> >       and my KOSS Porta PRO headphones are able to reproduce them :-) ).
> >      Either implement it (better way) or remove the slider.
> I don't believe you.  Be aware the slider is logarithmic.  You won't easily be 
> able to hear the effect unless you raise the level isntead of lowering it.  
> This is something I have in store for kde 3.2, with a major Eq overhaul, 
> implmenting some really cool stuff.
> 
> My peak is a mere 14kHz in fact, and I'm merely 18.  I suspect it's more to do 
> with genes and less to due with age.  Although I guess going to rock concerts 
> doesn't help either ;)
> 
> 
> >   5) Setting the stereo balance in noatun (like from the Winamp interface)
> >      doesn't work. One must use kmix.
> That's because it's a useless feature, hence never implemented.
> 
> Or not one useful enough to warrant my adding it, and its cpu usage.
> 
> >   6) There are effects available in noatun which are doing nothing because
> >      they cannot be controlled (STEREO_PITCH_SHIFT) or just distort
> >      the sound (STEREO_PITCH_SHIFT_FFT). Either make them working or remove
> >      them.
> Arts has no maintainer now, AFAIK.  Shame, isn't it.  What's necessary is for 
> their mcopclass file to be appropriately changed so they don't fall into the 
> noatun filter.  Patches accepted.
> 
> >   I'm a very big fan of the computer multimedia, especially sound
> 
> I just like music, so I wrote a media player.  Except getting whiny emails 
> from users who don't like the software they're getting for free because of a 
> bug that's not in my code doesn't exactly motivate me, and the complaining of 
> certain developers due to certain design decisions that I made in the 
> software I wrote over the course of two and a half years also doesn't exactly 
> float my boat.  I don't exactly see Alan Cox waving a banner with a certain 
> multi-pronged eating utensil in front of Linus Torvalds.
> 
> > processing - a simple tape recorder was my most favorite toy from my 4. I'm
> > also a very big fan of KDE and I would like to see 3.1 really perfect.
> > Maybe I'm a bit biased but I think that kdemultimedia is currently one of
> > the most unstable part of it. I'm wishing the programmers unlimited sources
> > of power to complete their Sisyphos's work with bug hunting and finishing
> > their big work!
> 
> Noatun never crashes for me, that's all that counts, as far as I'm concerned.
> 
> 
> - -- 
> Charles Samuels <charles at kde.org>
> ### <charles at altair.dhs.org> is obsolete, please update your addressbook.
>  "The world is my circuit board, and I am the electron."
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