Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] [ANN] Downloadable Linux Audio Live CD ISO
From: Christoph Eckert (mchristoph.eckert_AT_t-online.de)
Date: Tue Dec 14 2004 - 02:03:07 EET
> it certainly (and intentionally) focuses on interactive
> apps that immediately make a lot of noise ;-) Would be cool
> to extend it in a way to also offer simple mouse click
> access e.g. to Ardour, MusE, including the required HowTos.
> (Live distro designers, are you listening ? ;-)
I for myself have really enjoyed the live CD, and I
immediately did install the latest version of Aeolus on my
Gentoo box after I had played the live CD one.
Otherwise, the CD somehow also shows that audio on linux is
still not that easy to handle. I think that there are so many
nice audio apps, but some minor improvements concerning the
usability would make it much easier to unexperienced users to
get started; I'd simply like to address some of the things
that I would find really great:
* applications could automatically check during startup if
jack is running and autoconnect to it; if not (or ..alsa is
given), fall back to ALSA. ams for example does
autoconfiguring the audio output really great
* applications could remember the last used MIDI interface and
autoreconnect to it; most often a computer has only one MIDI
interface which is not often changed
* applications could automatically reconnect to jack as soon
as jack has been restarted or jack has disconnected an
application; currently, some applications simply freeze
* GUI applications could offer the possibility to set and
change the MIDI and audio connections from within the
program's interface.
* Audio applications could make it possible to choose the
desired audio card for input or output from within the GUI
(like kamix does, for example) instead of expecting a CLI
parameter (which then is different for any application: --ao
alsa:3, --device plughhw:1, -c 2, and even the numbering from
0 to n or 1 to n+1 is confusing ;-).
There are more things which would be nice to have; we all want
to have long required new features instead of some
convenience functions, but as soon new users are a
destination group, I have to say that it is really great if
someone can write a complicated software, but it is also
complicated and honourful to have the end user in mind.
Meanwhile (and in a very short time), audio applications on
linux have seen an evolution which is simply incredible. I
guess now it's the right time to add - step by step - some
convenience functions to them.
And oh yeah, if *I* could only code, I'd immediately start 20
projects concerning the comfort of using linux audio apps. Or
I have to win a huge amount of money, so I could pay some
developers to do the job for us ;-) . THe next life I live
I'll be a programmer for sure!
Please note, this is not a complaint, but I thought I should
grab the chance to make some suggestions in this great list.
Best regards & have phun,
ce
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