Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] recording multiple input audio streams
From: Paul Perkins (speaker-to-vegetables_AT_pobox.com)
Date: Mon Jun 23 2003 - 15:30:14 EEST
Well, the WIKI page on ALSA config files at
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=.asoundrc
has evolved to where it is beginning to sound useful. But it doesn't take you
all that far, and it needs explanations of basic terms like "pcm" (in its
peculiar ALSA meaning), "slave", and "plugin". The "detailed" material on
plugins it references
(http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/pcm_plugins.html) is just a
list of plugin names and plugin argument names, padded with some boiler-plate
text that rarely adds anything that isn't implicit in the names.
I don't measure the power of a computer or of software by what it can do. I
measure power by how much faster or better I can do what I want to do with
the computer or software, than without it. Including the learning time. By
this definition, good documentation makes software more powerful, and
documentation that requires a lot of hunting around and trial-and-error to
make sense of, makes software less powerful.
As for how far I am willing to go, that depends on what I expect to find when
I get there. I'm a pretty good C and Python programmer with a smattering of
C++ and Java, I'll edit fstab, modules.conf, XF86Config, and so on with vi
when I have to (but these days count it as a bug in the distribution when I
do have to). I use Linux for pretty much all my computer activities these
days, except music recording / synthesizing / effects / mixing. I'd like to
use Linux for that as well, but it just doesn't seem to be ready yet. When
Ardour is stable it might be time for me to make another attempt to switch
over (from the evil empire os). Music is enough of a challenge for me, I
don't need to be on the software bleeding edge at the same time.
On Sunday 22 June 2003 11:55 pm, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
> Paul Perkins wrote:
> > On Friday 20 June 2003 01:30 pm, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
> >>Paul Perkins wrote:
> >>>... and I'm still waiting for the day when someone explains ALSA
> >>>configuration files
> >>>in a way that I can understand....
> > What don't I understand? I would like to see each concept that the ALSA
> > configuration file language is intended to be able to express, and then
> > the syntax used to express that concept. Then some examples with clear
> > explanations of why each thing in the config file was put there. As in a
> > good programming language tutorial. What I've seen instead is a lot of
> > chunks of strange-looking syntax "explained" by saying "try stuffing this
> > in <some file somewhere>, and good luck." Which leaves me blundering
> > around in the dark, hoping to get lucky :-).
...
> "Don't bend the
> spoon... Let the spoon bend you..."
Maybe if I had any idea what you mean by "let the spoon bend you" I would also
find the ALSA documentation crystal clear ;-).
Paul Perkins
sigmotto: Liberty is theft.
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