In article , Jim Price
wrote:
On 14/02/13 22:56, Davey wrote:

Indeed. I have no idea what Jack is, but it is there, in /usr/lib64.
But what happens otherwise if I remove it?


Jack is handy for music production, as you can often use some of the
features of your sound card which might not be supported by ALSA alone.

I continue to wonder about that. I haven't ever use 'Jack'. Never needed
it, despite recording things as well as playing and processing them. But my
impression is that it has been developed as a 'user friendly' sic way to
do things which its creators *think* people "can't do" with ALSA.

However the "can't" may mean "don't know how" rather than "physically
impossible" - mainly, perhaps, because making sense of ALSA can be a real
struggle. And may involve hand-editing files, etc, which is hardly
user-friendly if people want to dump the old image of Linux = "Typing
arcane commands into terminals". Plus documentation that only makes sense
when you've hacked your way to a solution. ...erm IMHO.

Indeed, I keep feeling that people have invented and added extra "sound
systems" as an alternative to understanding and documenting (and making
programs to ease) doing this using ALSA.

The result now seems to be a pile of 'different' sound systems, which can
easily interfere with simple user choices that don't fit the auto-magical
assumptions of an install. Hence Jack, Pulse, etc, become a PITA for many
rather than a solution. And make some people feel it is a hopeless task to
do something as simply play music as they prefer.

So far as practical, I'd advise people to avoid Jack, Pulse, etc, as they
just complicate issues for basic uses. As far as I'm concerned, Pulse is a
virus. But as usual, YMMV. ;-

2p ended. :-)

Jim

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