Re: [LAU] perhaps why some of us have more trouble w/ pulseaudio than others (ICE1712/M-audio delta problem w/ pulseaudio)

From: Paul Davis <paul@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Wed May 12 2010 - 14:16:23 EEST

On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 3:53 AM, david <gnome@email-addr-hidden> wrote:

> IMHO, the obvious solution would be for them to simply stop wasting their
> time on PA and make an existing and better solution (JACK) better. ;-)
>

i don't think you are clear that JACK and PA are attempting to solve
different problems.

i didn't fully anticipate how different until i went to the linux plumbers
conference last year. by far the most important user of linux audio
facilities these days is neither the desktop nor the pro-audio/music
creation communities. its mobile devices, phones in particular. when i say
important, what i really mean is "where the money is".

the needs of the mobile device community for audio is so far away from what
JACK is about, and much closer to what PulseAudio tries to do that its not
suprising that the companies (like Intel, Nokia and Google) who are funding
development of the audio systems that drive mobile devices are focusing
their attention on the system that caters to their products' needs.

JACK is cool, but its latency and "performance" focused design is a
liability on designs where the consumption of CPU cycles, memory and above
all consumption are primary considerations. Apple again did the right thing
here by coming up with a design that works almost equally well for high
latency and low latency applications, but even Apple has had to promote a
different API for iPhone and iPad developers that looks more a traditional
queing model than the callback-focused design of traditional CoreAudio (and
JACK).

Saying that JACK is "better" than PulseAudio is like saying that more(1) is
better than cat(1). Or that my Honda Fit (Jazz for europeans) is better than
my neighbour's Ford F150 truck. They don't try to solve the same problems.
They don't even really want to solve the same problems. And most
importantly, AFAIK their developers don't want to solve the same problems.

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Received on Wed May 12 16:15:01 2010

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