OK a4z, first off, of course I am aware of the POV of that article and stated he was an advocate for Pulse. It's exactly why I picked that specific one. It is not a problem for me to be objective and give other's their due respect and concern. It's never "My way or the highway". It's always "Whatever twirls ur beanie". I tried to be gentlemanly with you but you persist in seeing this as some personal competition where one wins and another loses and write audiophile's concerns and expertise off as "fantasy" while deluding yourself into imagining you have the inside track on Truth for everyone. Apparently you imagine that adding an unnecessary software layer comes completely free of cost, so we are done on this subject. I won't beat my head against your wall further. Enjoy your monitor speaker's High Fidelity and the magical code of the PulseAudio server.

3 members found this post helpful.

ALSA has always performed poorly compared to OSS.

It's a real shame that those politics happened. OSS certainly was one of Linux's stronger points, back in the day.

Anyone claiming to be an audiophile should be lamenting the fact that we no longer have OSS, rather than complaining about PA.

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wrong assumptions, allegation, off topic and on personal level. Nothing of value fro you, as usual.
PLONK, and welcome on the ignore list and please do the same with me to stop commenting what I write with your fantasy creations, this will spare this place a lot of mess, thanks (even if I fear, your personal motivation to prove someone something will not allow you to do this.)

I'm not an expert, but even after the abuse my ears have taken I can still tell you when your speakers are out of phase. No, I never had bat ears. Certainly not now.

I'm really not interested in joining Debate Club, but there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding about latency, when it matters, and how to compensate. Sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't. It depends on what you're trying to do. If you're trying to mix MIDI live, then it's more problematic because you've also got the latency of the device on top of the system latency. The idea is that you want the track you're adding to start at the correct time. That's one of the things that makes it music.

Routing PA through JACK is one of several possible options with JACK. PA still adds latency, so adjusting the configuration options in PA doesn't solve all problems. Again, whether that works for you is partially a function of what you're trying to accomplish. It's not an imaginary problem and in some cases it makes sense to separate PA from the process, whether you choose to suspend it or remove it altogether.

Hopefully that makes sense. If not, I tried. If anyone actually made it this far, my main point is that this is a ridiculously stupid argument. PulseAudio and JACK have different goals. They're not mutually exclusive, although you may not want to use them both at the same time. Let it go. Be thankful that we have nice things, like options in Slackware.

7 members found this post helpful.

Thank you! My purpose for starting this thread was to celebrate the inclusion of Alsa back into Slackware. I am thankful that Pat gives us a lot of freedom to use our computers the way we want.

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Claiming to be an audiophile does not require anything else, the claim is more than enough. Claiming to be an audiophile means soundlover, i.e. expressing feelings. Everyone has its own feelings. Expressed feelings can deal with truth, but, as is proved, feelings can also be deceived, so the expressed feelings are, has been and will be just expressed feelings by someone, i.e. how someone feels about something (let's take fever as an example: the body temperature has increased above the normal range, i.e, it's hotter, but you feel cold. The fact (the truh) is that you're hotter, but you feel cold).
Feelings are in fact opionios, like "trivial conversations", "blubbering" ...
But, for example, if someone claim something substancial (material or mon-material existence, a piece of thing or let's say is both "audiophile" and experienced master audio-engineer (degree or status achieved after proven knowledge), then the claimer has to prove his claim, to show some evidence that that claim is a fact (truth).
Lamenting about past is useful only if you would learn something from past for better present or future. Lamenting because of lamenting is contraproductive bulls***ing.
If there is no A, it's timewasting blubbering about A, and it's much more productive talking (facts) about B and C, why is B better than C or viceversa, or, why not, let's make kind of A again, of course with some evidence, that prooves this or that.
Lamenting rather than complaining ("... lamenting ... rather than complaining ...") is not kind of dilemma (eventualy is false dilemma).
If someone anounce his feeling (likeness) about anything ("I feel PA as the greatest software of all time or the most atrocious pita"), has to prove nothing, because this are just his feelings.
But if someone would like to express absolute truth about something (let's say PA is the latest and the greatest or PA is the most atrocious pita), then must prove this claims.
If someone like enorbet expose both, his feelings and some absolute truth about some software, and produce also some evidence for both of them, although the expressed feelings doesn't requires proof, it's a bonus, it is the time and place to learn something.

Does "alsa comeback option" produce any kind of hurt to anyone? No.
So, why for the God's sake would anyone take the point against "alsa comeback option", which makes happy so many people?
This is the rhetorical question, of course. The answer is well known and would be eventualy reminded in some other similar occasion.


In the meantime we praise having choise:


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this makes sens, is true and never was a question,
I think for this and other similar use cases there is even a Slackware base solution that is specialized , or at least tries it.
http://www.studioware.org/

Thank you, Johnny Guitar for the quiet voice of reason. FTR there are currently available digital amp simulators that allow adjustment of latency. Everyone, even the most untrained ears and brains, can hear a 5msec latency. Trained musicians have been logged as perceiving 3 msec. Nobody can directly perceive 2 msec but that assumes a 2 msec effect has no indirect effect on anything but our brain/ears. It has been measured for decades that some events occurring in microseconds can and do commonly behave like ripples where those indirect effects last long enough to get up into the area of several milliseconds where people can and do perceive them. Not only have I witnessed such events with my ears but I have measured them with recording voltmeters, oscilloscopes and Fast Fourier Transforms. This is not fantasy but measurable reality that has been realized for many decades so anyone who doubts this and who posts here has the means to search out this confirmed data.

There is widespread askance views on experts of all types and possibly especially audiophiles, partly from the lack of the required training and experience but often due to the cost of esoteric gear itself. Some swear by such esoteric devices as Monster Cable and to be honest I can't hear any difference between it and reasonable quality, proper gauge copper wire commonly sold as lamp cord or simple speaker cable BUT if one has the money and doesn't mind leaving no stone unturned Monster cable is extremely high quality and wouldn't be a dumb choice if it wasn't so ridiculously expensive given what is even remotely possible as a difference. However there are differences in some gear that are both highly noticeable and measurable that others who don't work in that area either can't perceive or will overlook.

That's perfectly fine if anyone thinks whiskey in a jar fresh from a backwoods still tastes better or is just as good as 12 year old single barrel or day old instant coffee is just as good as that brewed fresh from beans. That's personal choice and you're lucky to be a "cheap date". For such a person to insist that those who are trained more or who simply have greater experience or higher standards are engaging in fantasy is IMHO simply arrogant if not a little self-deluded, and of ultimate importance is that even if that were true, depriving them of options is unjustified and indefensible.

So if it wasn't already clear, once again, Thank You Patrick... you are a gentleman, a scholar and a great judge of fine whiskey

However, your discourse has a defect:

I suppose that Slackware is NOT a Music Studio distribution, just like it is NOT yet even Enterprise Ready.

How about the bat-folks to use instead the right tool for the right job, like a ultra-specialized distribution with Real-Time Kernels, OSS and all shiny features features which are a must for those with bat ears?

Because, certainly a generic Linux distribution does not offer them all.

Hint, hint, hint: imagine a Slackware Professional Studio for a subscription of only $5000 per year.

I bet that a handful of bat-folks willing to pay will make it happen.

And Slackware is NOT a gaming distribution, or a media center distribution, or a server distribution, or a desktop distribution, or a laptop disribution, or a, or a, or a...

Slackware doesn't aim to be a specific style of distribution, but rather tries to be a sane base that people can tailor to their own needs.

It may not be ready out of the box to handle the needs of a music studio, but it also isn't ready out of the box to be a media center. I haven't tried the first, but the second was relatively easy for me to adjust Slackware to my needs of an HTPC.

4 members found this post helpful.

Would it be possible to set a pure alsa system with a 5.1 speakers and a receiver? I use HDMI for video and audio. So far I have relied on pulseaudio without huge issues but I do remember that I had some issues initially. Having the alternative would be very nice, just in case.

Certainly. I've had that set up in the past. You can either output all 6 channels over analog outputs (if your sound card has that many outputs available and your receiver supports all those inputs) or you can output over hdmi, fiber-optic, or coax.

I believe the big benefit pulseaudio has is to simplify selecting between multiple output devices. It's not impossible to do that with alsa, but usually requires changing config files when you want to switch from one to the other. It can also provide individual application volume control. If you want your music player to be full volume but Firefox to be at 1/3 volume, you can do that with the sliders in pulseaudio... I'm not sure if you can with alsa.

On my systems I don't really have a need for pulseaudio since they both only have one sound card and I don't ever intend to need to switch between devices. Also, I tend to only play sound from one source at a time, so the per-app volume control isn't a big deal to me. However, even though I don't have a need for pulseaudio, I do use it because I don't have any problems with it. It works fine on my desktop with it's stereo speakers (and subwoofer) as well as my htpc with hdmi to my receiver (running 5.1 audio out from the PC). These were both working fine on Slackware 14.1 with alsa as well, although, I did have to do a bit of alsa conf tweaking on my desktop to have it use the speaker jacks rather than the hdmi for sound output. But that was a one-time change and never had issues after that change.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you very much. Very insightful. Will try.

Using a smiley face comes off as no less offensive. Please do us the courtesy of not being condescending when it's so obvious that you have very little relevant knowledge about this subject. In addition, the "right tool" for me is Slackware. I admit that in the past I've been critical of PulseAudio, but that's a different topic and I'm not asking anyone to change anything for me. (But it's really nice that Patrick went to the trouble of providing an ALSA-only option and I do appreciate that.)

Other than provoking further conflict, what is it that you think you can add to this topic?

Edit:
It occurs to me that responding to people who are off-topic still qualifies as being off-topic. I'm out. I surrender.

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You don't have to be an audiophile to notice what pulse did. I've used the same sound card since 2000, when OSS was still in the kernel. The migration from OSS to ALSA did have some impact. I continued to use OSS into 2.6, with ALSA as an option until ALSA was cleaned up a bit and the kernel implementation of OSS started its bitrot. I could go back to OSS since I haven't changed hardware. Like I said, I am not that picky, and ALSA was made to behave.

The /addition/ of pulse /on top/ of ALSA was clearly noticeable. Never before was my sound was so bad and there was no way to fix it, and no way to have proper device control. Worse, it is not really possible to make pulse properly coexist with the ALSA environment. I'm sure the coexist thing could be done by the developers, but I really don't think the pulse maintainers are going to do a thing to support that, evidence into how many years they've already had to address it. That is why I decided to rip pulse out completely. Note I've observed pulse on multiple systems, and they all roughly behaved the same way without having the same hw. Then it was my decision to remove it from all my systems after I decided that it was architected poorly.

Please don't make this sound like that it's audiophiles that complain about pulse, or that you have to have some argument for "audiophile" stereotyped things to have a valid argument. I am not that picky as you can note concerning my pragmatic decisions; I'm just making rational decisions to avoid something that is clearly worse and cannot coexist properly.

*yes it is a shame that politics happened concerning OSS, but you can see that is not an argument. Pulse is pulse.

1 members found this post helpful.