On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 09:47:52 +0000 (GMT)
Jim Lesurf wrote:

In article 20130215203017.02b60dda@debian, Folderol
wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:30:56 +0000 (GMT) Jim Lesurf
wrote:

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.

Jack allows you to look at audio links in a totally different way.
It uses ALSA to make the physical connections, but (using something
like Qjackctl) presents all the information in a sane manner.

In effect, that's a part of my point. Jack is effectively acting as a
'human interface' to ALSA. People use it because they can make sense
of how to use Jack, but are baffled by how to get ALSA directly to
achieve the same specific task.

If Jack (or indeed Pulse, etc) work for you or anyone else, that's
fine with me. Matter of personal preference and convenience. However
my feeling is that we have got into this situation of having 'many
different sound systems' due to a lack of awareness of how to simply
use ALSA. That, in turn, is because it can be a real PITA to work out
how to get ALSA set up in the way a specific task requires.

I've managed by banging rocks together for a few years to sort out the
basics of just getting music to play or record using ALSA. I've still
not sussed out the more complex requirements. So I can quite
understand why people use Jack, etc.

The problem in my experience, though, is that sometimes systems like
Pulse actually cause problems because they 'nanny' the user and
actually stop them getting what they want. Once that happens I feel
the user can easily end up in the kind of situation familiar to some
Windows/Mac users: Of the system refusing to do what is wanted, and
behaviing in an opaque manner which resists the user's attempts to
correct its incorrect behaviour.

For the sake of my own sanity I gave up fighting Pulse years ago. I
just bypass it. But I just need to play or record/capture one stream
at a time. If I were trying to do multichannel recordings, mixdowns,
etc, I'd probably do something else.

Slainte,

Jim


That sounds like a sensible viewpoint, from my perspective of very
limited experience of this business. If Folderol finds Jack useful, good
for him, but since I am struggling getting the basics working, I don't
think I'll go there.
I did some basic testing yesterday, I'll post the results later on, for
your comments.
--
Davey.