[pulseaudio-discuss] Pulseaudio in general - does it make sense?

[Rémi Cardona]

Le 22/12/2009 21:49, Gene Heskett a écrit :
> Now I have.  And it seems awfully complex for something that should just
> work.

I'll bite.

PulseAudio, while not being 100% perfect yet, is like NetworkManager 4 
years ago, or Compiz about 2 years ago.

All those projects have in common that they're pushing the 
infrastructure beyond anything that's been done before.

When NM started, Dan Williams (its creator) spent months kicking kernel 
drivers to get them to behave somewhat sanely by properly supporting the 
various iwconfig properties : scanning, signal strength, WPA, etc. 
(Doesn't that sound awfully familiar?)

Today, no-one even notices NetworkManager anymore because the project 
has been so successful. And even if people choose to use Moblin's wifi 
manager or wicd instead, the very fact remains that NM was the first 
userland project to pull Linux's wifi stack out of its miserable state.

I could go on about Compiz and graphics drivers, but I'm sure I've said 
enough for now.

Bottom line, sound on Linux is still a mess but PA is helping a _lot_ to 
clean it all up (and it really is starting to show). I can only 
encourage you to file bugs wherever appropriate so that sound on Linux 
just works.

Cheers,

Rémi