On Wed, 7 Dec 2011 22:37:30 +0000 Mick <michaelkintz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > PulseAudio is to audio what X.org is to video: stream mixing > > software. > > I see ... so for many use cases that do not require to selectively > modify the volume of different outputs, pulseaudio is really not > necessary at all (I can always plug/unplug an earphone jack or what > not). That would not make pulseaudio the default selection IMHO, but > anyway - isn't that what jack is used for? Is pulseaudio another > jack application? No, not really. Jack is for professional applications where detail is everything. Things like latency - it becomes a nightmare trying to deal with even small amounts of latency when doing good quality audio mixing. Pulseaudio is an effort to deal with current and future trends in regular everyday usage. To borrow Claudio's example - it's not all that uncommon these days to have external speakers, built-in speakers, bluetooth headsets and HDMI all hook up to the same consumer machine, all coming and going as the user plugs stuff in and out. The user wants it all to JustWork nicely. This is a quite different thing from what jack set out to solve. Of course whether jack, alsa, pulseaudio, oss or oss4 succeeded in solving any of these things is a debate for another time, let's rather just stick to design goals for now :-) -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
