Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] icky low level linux stuff
From: Speaker to Vegetables (speaker-to-vegetables_AT_pobox.com)
Date: Fri Jul 26 2002 - 02:39:05 EEST
Some Linux enthusiasts are, in my opinion, much too quick to tell people
they have to install a patched and/or custom-configured kernel.
Sometimes that is the right answer, but often it is not really
necessary. Not all audio work has to be super-low-latency, for
instance. And the process of building your own kernel and installing it
is ugly enough to horrify a lot of potential Linux converts into asking
the dreaded question "how to I delete Linux from my computer?"
The kernel configuration system is a real disaster area. I've run custom
configured kernels at times (I am right now, actually) but I always
expect to need several tries to get it right, there are so many choices
and they are so badly organized. The Linux Kernel Krew have rejected a
new and probably much better configuration system that was supposed to
go into Linux 2.5.x, seemingly because some of them don't like its
author (the ever-so-humble Eric Raymond). Ah well.
The idea of a Linux Distribution that has been optimized for audio
recording and musical performance work sounds like a good one to me.
Most of the well-known distributions are still shipping either
pseudo-OSS, or ALSA 0.5.x as their sound support at this time. It's not
been that long since ALSA 0.9.x was making incompatible API changes
every few weeks.
-- "Can you remember the future? Forget it!"
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