On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 19:59, Jason Clouse wrote: > Since I seem to have nominated myself to improve the documentation, it > would be helpful if ALSA users would tell me about their unfulfilled > dreams. > > 1. What does ALSA do that you wish it wouldn't?
Nothing that I know of. > 2. What does ALSA NOT do that you wish it would? AUDIO: Nothing technical with respect to the underlying Alsa server. If I have issues with Alsa it's the quality of the drivers for the 4 different cards I use. I believe 3 cards (HDSP 9652, Digi9632 and Via 8235) all have technical problems which limit their value to me when I run Linux. (Or stated more clearly, drive me towards booting the systems in Windows when I need to depend on getting work done.) The 4th card (AP2496) I use only for MIDI currently so I cannot comment on whether it works well on the audio side. It actually worked quite well when I last used it under Alsa. (circa 0.9.2) MIDI: 1) Alsa does not name MIDI devices in a way that makes sense to composers. Alsa should be able to display a marketing name for a MIDI device. It should be able to name ports on these devices. (Port 1 Out or MIDI A In) so that they match the language on the physical device. I expect that there is probably some smart .asoundrc trick I could play to create virtual MIDI devices with names I like, but I don't know how to do it. I just think that many composer types will not like 72:4 and 80:0. 2) With pretty much all of the MIDI interfaces I've used under Alsa (AP2496, MidiSport 2x2 & HDSP 9652) there have been ongoing 'note stuck on' issues. It's not possible for me, as a user, to know if this is and Alsa problem, a card driver problem, or a Linux MIDI app problem. All I know is that it happens on 2 machines with 3 MIDI interfaces and about 10 different MIDI apps. Recently a patch to LinuxSampler removed a problem there so possibly it's a general application programming issue. If so then something should be documented and communicated to these app developers. 3) I have undocumented low-level 'concerns' about the timing accuracy of MIDI under Linux, but it's not so bad as to warrant 'worry' or a bug report. Just concerns that there is more jitter in my Linux MIDI created audio than on my Windows boxes. > 3. Have you been able to find solutions to those problems? No. > 4. Were the solutions easy to find? > 5. Did the solutions make sense? > 6. Did the solutions work as expected? > Thanks for the opportunity to comment. - Mark ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by EclipseCon 2004 Premiere Conference on Open Tools Development and Integration See the breadth of Eclipse activity. February 3-5 in Anaheim, CA. http://www.eclipsecon.org/osdn _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
