aRts in trunk

[Mark Constable]

On Saturday 30 July 2005 06:03, Allan Sandfeld Jensen wrote:
> On Friday 29 July 2005 21:46, Mark Constable wrote:
> > Exactly, if it's a part of KDE it would get so much more exposure
> > and focus that the setup difficulties would dealt with. That's what
> > using KDE is all about, hiding the ugly stuff from users.
> >
> We can't do that. Last time I checked jack only worked on linux,

It runs on Mac OSX, and probably on other unices, via Portaudio.

> and required  
> a custom kernel patch applied to get the real-time privileges it needs to not 
> drop out _all_ the time. 

The required and accepted patch is now part of kernel 2.6.12, it's
controlled via a patched PAM which should be shipping with distros
anytime from now on. By the time the KDE4 betas ship, all distros
will probably include a realtime capable kernel + PAM by default.
 
> The design is basically flawed for desktop audio since it delegates real-time 
> low-latency work loads through unix pipes to the audio applications. You 
> cannot expect all audio applications to run real-time and you can not expect 
> users to apply custom patches that allow jack to hand out real-time 
> privileges.

Your second point will be non-existant in the coming months and I'm
not sure how you judge the first point as all the serious audio apps
I am aware of actually do require Jack to interoperate with other apps.

In fact I am struggling to think of any audio apps that do not either
depend on Jack to interoperate with other apps or at least has some
included or 3rd partly Jack driver. Even aRts has a Jack driver.

> And no matter what KDE does, a pretty GUI can not hide applying kernel patches 
> and a design that is just not suitable for desktop usage.

As pointed out, your first objection is evaporating and folks ARE using
Jack right now in KDE for both casual and professional audio usage so
I can't accept that it is "not suitable for desktop usage". Anyone
using Rosegarden or Muse, or any number of other KDE/Qt audio apps
are already using Jack right now.

--markc